Woman Admits Sending $400K To Nigerian Scammer

svnt writes "Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account, remortgaged their paid-for house, and took out a lien against the family car in an attempt to cash in on the deal. A undercover officer involved with the investigation called it the worst example of the scam he's ever seen. Thoughtfully, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim."

Comments

I'm amazed

[butterflysrage]

not only that she never heard of these kinds of scams.... but that no one who could have talked her out of it before then had either...

Re:I'm amazed

[Free the Cowards]

RTFA, a lot of people tried to talk her out of it but she was so obsessed (i.e. stupid) that they simply couldn't.

Re:I'm amazed

[turtledawn]

For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.

Re:I'm amazed

[evilphish_mi]

Its a sad commentary that these scams even work at all. I had hoped that the average person had better common sense then that.

Re:I'm amazed

[Free the Cowards]

The average person does have better common sense than that. Probably less than one in one thousand people falls victim to these scams (number pulled out of my ass, but I'd bet that it's far less than that), meaning that the vast majority of people have the basic smarts to avoid them.

Re:I'm amazed

[Aphoxema]

Reminds me of this elderly couple I help with the computers working at the college. They've fallen for this pyramid scheme that is just so painfully obvious, but the old man just keeps explaining he's had enough experience (that is, has gotten fucked before) to know better and the old woman just follows along and doesn't ask any questions.

"It's not a scam, it's a high yield investment!"

Re:I'm amazed

[LordKronos]

Yet, somehow she thinks that sharing HER story with the world will convince other people? If only someone had shared their story with her, she could have avoided this terrible mess, so she's going to make sure it doesn't happen to others? Please. Even in acknowledging her stupidity, she shows no sense.

Re:I'm amazed

[MBGMorden]

Not only that but from the article (Yeah, it seems like all of us just HAD to read this one.):

"Janella Spears doesn't think she's a sucker or an easy mark."

Janella, no, you're not a sucker or an easy mark. You're the dumbest fucking person on Earth.

Re:I'm amazed

[bb5ch39t]

She's planning to be on one of the World's Stupidest ... episodes that are now airing on TruTV (was CourtTV). There are more stupid people in the world than even I ever thought possible.

Re:I'm amazed

[whoever57]

but she was so obsessed (i.e. stupid) that they simply couldn't.

Yeah, but she is going to get that money back within 2 years -- by selling the rights to her story..... but first, she has to put up a small investment to get the agent working.......

Re:I'm amazed

[mweather]

That's why we have courts to rule people incompetent.

Re:I'm amazed

[erroneus]

This is a perfect example of why every form of advertising works... even spam.

The fact is, when someone wants something bad enough, they will do anything and believe anything to get it.

This is why there are new Christians converted every day. They want to believe (It is called FAITH) and they will throw out every ounce of scepticism, logic, knowledge and understanding that conflicts with what they want to believe.

Re:I'm amazed

[cthulu_mt]

50% of the people you meet are of average intelligence. Pretty fucking scary, right?

Re:I'm amazed

[DrLang21]

My mother works at a bank and she has to talk people out of these scams on a regular basis, and refuses to deposit the obviously fake checks. It's almost unbelievable how convinced these people are that it's not a scam.

Re:I'm amazed

[91degrees]

Once you've lost a bit of money, it becomes harder to accept that you've made a mistake. The first payment would have been a few hundred dollars at least, probably a couple of thousand. No small beans by most people's standards. She can either admit to herself that she's wasted the money, or pay the next instalment and convince herself that she'll get the money back.

Certainly it's foolish, but it's a common enough occurrence that there's an expression for it; Throwing good money after bad.

Re:I'm amazed

[penguin_dance]

That's my thoughts--anyone as DUMB as she is won't believe her!

But this is beyond stupidity--she is clearly mentally ill and you've got to wonder why the husband, banks, family members ALLOWED this to go on. It wasn't like no one knew what she was doing. Why couldn't they have her name removed from accounts and not allowed access to the funds...declare her mentally unfit or whatever it took?

This is similar to those stories you hear once and awhile on how some old person spent thousands on magazines they didn't need, thinking it would help them win the Publisher's Clearing House prize.

Re:I'm amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

Poor woman probably even hawked her banjo.

Re:I'm amazed

[djchristensen]

Was this a lame attempt at a joke, or were you serious? If you were serious, then you are among the 50% of people that are below average intelligence.

Re:I'm amazed

[fictionpuss]

Mean, Median and Mode. In a world of 99 uniform dumbasses and 1 genius, 99% would be below mean intelligence.

Not sure where you get the 50% from.

Re:I'm amazed

[SlashBugs]

...because we don't live in a world of 99 uniform dumbasses and 1 genius. We live in a world with lots of dumbasses and lots of very smart people, with most folks somewhere in the middle. It's a normal distribution so, yes, 50% are below the mean.

Re:I'm amazed

[operagost]

Straw man
If you really believe the last line of your post, then you are more foolish than the woman this article is about. I would love to hear you tell Ravi Zacharias or Josh McDowell to their faces that they don't understand logic.

Re:I'm amazed

[cayenne8]

During my high school through college years I worked with the general public (retail sales, waiting, bartender) and by doing this it was made painfully clear that most people out there are fucked In the head, complete idiots. If you work long enough with the public you will start to think this too, like in the 98% range. I would never thought that poorly of so many of my fellow man, but experience can be a real eye opener.

Re:I'm amazed

[mace9984]

"You're the dumbest fucking person on Earth." I fucking love it! I'm going to go sell this bitch a bridge!

Re:I'm amazed

[Lobster Quadrille]

Wow.

Either she's the world's biggest moron, or it was the world's best con job.

Either way, she doesn't deserve to keep that money.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

IQ works on a curve.

An IQ of 100 is the 50th percentile. You have exactly half the world stupider than you, and half the world smarter than you.

50% of the population has an IQ between 90 and 110. This is considered, by most, to be the range classed as "average."
25% of people are dumber than 90, and 25% are smarter than 110.
96% are between 80 and 120, so only 2% are smarter than 120.
If I remember rightly, 99.5% are between 70 and 130, so if you're above 130, you're above the 99.75 percentile.

If you're at or above 140, you're a fscking genius, on any scale. And if you're above 140, then 98% of the population (80..120 + <80) is more than 20 IQ points below you. (And "average" is 30-50 points below you.)

So, if you meet a genius, and (s)he says the world is full of morons, you've got to realize that from their perspective, it's true. 98% of people they meet are as mentally slow or slower relative to them as a borderline mental retard of 70-79 IQ is to an average person.

That's why 50% of the people you meet being of average intelligence is pretty fucking scary, when you're talking from the point of view of a genius.

This is all, of course, assuming that cthulu_mt is actually genius material. :)

Re:I'm amazed

[againjj]

Given that you know that there is mean, median, and mode, you should know that they are all called an "average". So, for a suitably defined "average" (median) in any distribution, 50% are below average. And given how intelligence works, I think median is the most meaningful measure. Have you ever noticed that standardized tests are all in percentiles?

Re:I'm amazed

[TheSeventh]

He said 50% of the people you meet are of average intelligence. Because, you know, there's 25% above average and 25% below average as well.

Methinks he doesn't know how averages work . . .

Re:I'm amazed

[mcfatboy93]

It's almost unbelievable how convinced these people are that it's not a scam.

um yah if it sounds too good to be true. it is. hintity hint hint

Re:I'm amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

Or maybe she's a con herself. Perhaps she wired the money to some Swiss account and is using this opportunity to cash in on her 'tragic' story. Oh, nevermind. She's a reverend. She couldn't have made this story up.

Re:I'm amazed

[Pictish Prince]

Mean, Median and Mode. In a world of 99 uniform dumbasses and 1 genius, 99% would be below mean intelligence.

Not sure where you get the 50% from.

I don't know - I've met a lot of mean dumbasses and come to think of it, a lot of them were in uniform.

Re:I'm amazed

[mR.bRiGhTsId3]

He gets the 50% from the fact that human intelligence, like all attributes spread across human populations follow a bell shaped distribution. There is a nominal difference between the mean and median in a bell shaped distribution.

Re:I'm amazed

[OrangeTide]

The distribution is almost symmetric in the real world.

Re:I'm amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't believe she wouldn't cash my check. I'm still mad about that, I could have been a millionaire!

Re:I'm amazed

[cthulu_mt]

I understand how math works. "50%" is easier to say than "66% of all people you meet are within 1 standard deviation of average intelligence". That phrase is 14 times as long on average.

Re:I'm amazed

[WTF Chuck]

It was a common case of greed letting stupidity override common sense. Happens all the time. If it didn't, why else would the economy be in the shitter because of all the sub-prime and arm loans?

Re:I'm amazed

[chihowa]

It's a normal distribution, though, so about 68% percent are within one standard deviation of the mean. Depending on the scaling parameter of the distribution and the accuracy (error) of your intelligence tests, you could plausibly even say that 50% of the population are at the mean.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

You know, every once in a while you also hear of someone who doesn't try to spell a common phrase phonetically, not realizing it makes absolutely no sense how they've written it. :)

Re:I'm amazed

[Mysticalfruit]

I think this is akin to what happens to some people when they gamble. They start with a hundred and lose it, but since there's just the off chance that they could win thousands they figure, "Well, if I spend $200 and get $20,000 it'll be worth it!"

People also get unduly emotionally attached to a situation/thing and it clouds their judgment.

This same psychological problem can be seen in the business world where a company will continue to develop a product even when a competitor has the same product already on the shelf.

I guess I'm flabbergasted by the idea that even in this day and age there are still people falling for this kind of fraud.

Re:I'm amazed

[Schadrach]

In the school district where I grew up, and where my nephew now attends, they have a "gifted" program for those that (by their own testing), test IQ > 130, with +-3 points of that mark being taken on a case by case basis. I was in it when I was young, and my nephew currently is. Compared to others his age that I've known (including his older brothers/sisters when they were that age) you can tell. He picks up new skills/tasks/knowledge amazingly fast compared to them.

I have a feeling if they had tried to teach him to read earlier than they did he would have ended up an ubergeek bookworm like me (I was barely walking when my mother decided that I should at least look at the storybook she was reading, I picked it up early/quickly enough that I actually have no memory of a time before I was reading junior-high level stuff.

Re:I'm amazed

[Lobster Quadrille]

Until you get paid, it's not a high-yield investment; it's a high-risk investment.

Re:I'm amazed

[rmadmin]

People's common sense simply gets blinded out by greed. Its sad.

Re:I'm amazed

[lazyforker]

The basic rule of any con is that "You can't cheat an honest person". Greed and the mark's belief that they are somehow beating the scammer drive the mark's behaviour. Stupidity doesn't necessarily come into it.

But she was definitely stupid to ignore *everyone's* advice. I feel sorry for her husband.

Re:I'm amazed

[Brain-Fu]

Janella Spears doesn't think she's a sucker or an easy mark.

Many people like to believe that they are basically intelligent. They may readily admit that they don't know everything, but insist that they have a pretty good handle on most (if not all) of the really important things.

Far fewer people are actually willing to take the actions necessary to make such a belief true. Being "basically intelligent" requires that one make study and reflection part of one's lifestyle. Stopping with that once one graduates from school more-or-less guarantees that one is not, and will never be, "basically intelligent."

The real problem I have with this is that stupid people are not only a danger to themselves; they are a danger to those around them. Stupid people vote in favor of harmful/oppressive laws (or candidates), drive dangerously, harm the economy through poor money-management practices, harm their friends and family (sometimes emotionally, sometimes financially, sometimes physically) through stupid lifestyle practices, and so on.

In my opinion, it is every human's moral obligation to regularly invest a portion of their week to the business of improving their own cognitive abilities. And I don't just mean memorizing facts, but also engaging the mind's critical thinking capacities. One must be presented with genuine intellectual challenge in order to improve intelligence. One must, in other words, do things that are hard, since sticking with easy tasks will not produce the desired result.

And for God's sake, read Personal Finance for Dummies. If you haven't read it, stop trying to convince yourself you already know how money works. The book costs 15 bucks...just freaking READ IT!

Re:I'm amazed

[garaged]

you are fscking wrong, we live in a world of a lot of underaverage intelligence, and a very few % of intelligent people, being in the middle of the IQ distribution or even somewhat above doesn't make people intelligent you know

Re:I'm amazed

[ShieldW0lf]

There are a lot of them these days, and they're getting more sophisticated. My girlfriend got several of the "We'll pay you upfront, plus send you extra money for the printing, you do the graphic design work, then send the completed design and a portion of the money we sent you to Joe Smith at Printing Service XYZ, and we'll pick up the completed work from him when we come into town for our conference/concert/whatever." scams in the last year. It seems very plausible when you run a small business online.

Re:I'm amazed

[timeOday]

Well, a pyramid can work if you get out early enough. Ask any stockbroker.

Re:I'm amazed

[Falstius]

A program only for kids 130+, must be a pretty big school district. I doubt there were more than one or two kids every few years in my whole town who would have qualified.

Re:I'm amazed

[quarterbuck]

Look, she screwed up (and big time)
But she is old and probably grew old before internet and probably never traveled much (considering her background, seemly very likely -teacher and a priest of some sort -both very local professions). So there is some reason why she believed everything she was told. And she spent till she could spend no more.
She is gullible, but now she is taking a very, very brave decision, which is to admit her mistakes publicly.
The hope here is that there are two thresholds to spending - one one the amount of information and the other on the amount of money.When you get to either of them you stop sending money to Nigeria
She clearly did not get to her threshold of info before she got to the threshold of money. Hopefully by sharing her story, she is raising the awareness in other people who may be being scammed and they will back out of the stupidity before they hit the threshold of money themselves.
Another way of looking at it is that while the cost of going public is very very high and she alone bears the costs, she hopes that there is some (small, LordKronos says) limited benefit to doing this. Moreover she wont reap the benefits, the public will. So what she is doing is actually a good thing.
I'll ignore her stupidity considering it has limited impact on me, but will applaud the fact she went public with the info (since it provides some benefit to me -if nothing else, helps calculating the odds of being conned).
If nothing else, show some concern for old people and people who are not as smart as you are. Brain does'nt remain what it is in the youth and this is inevitable for you an me .Cut some slack now, so you won't be ridiculed later on.

Re:I'm amazed

[Maguscrowley]

Did you thinking when you made this post?

The probability distribution of IQ is a bell curve. If you want to find the probabilities of people above of below that use Chebyshev's inequality and a k=sqrt(2), half the probability that is left, and that's the probability that you will meet someone outside the interval of average intelligence intelligence (if you consider 50% of the population that can be found closest to the mean to define that interval.)

Re:I'm amazed

[retchdog]

One of the most irritating things to me, is that more intelligent and capable people than myself not only believe in the sky-fairy, but also delude themselves into thinking that he is somehow a benevolent entity.

It just goes to show, intelligence and intellectual honesty are not the same thing.

Re:I'm amazed

[Dahamma]

An IQ of 100 is the 50th percentile. You have exactly half the world stupider than you, and half the world smarter than you.

Correction: what it means is half the world scores worse than you on some random test, and half the world scores better.

Re:I'm amazed

[gsmraxe]

My question would be "Has this woman procreated?" Now that's a scary thought.

Re:I'm amazed

[pkluss]

Did you thinking when you made this post?

I'm pretty sure that's all that needs to be said.

Re:I'm amazed

[Nursie]

153, last test I took.

Doesn't mean I'm motivated, good at life OR immune to being suckered in. Just good at solving puzzles, reasoning and logic problems.

Re:I'm amazed

[Hurricane78]

Does that involve the ban of any reproduction for them?
If not, it's worthless. :)

Re:I'm amazed

[E 99]

So, if you meet a genius, and (s)he says the world is full of morons, you've got to realize that from their perspective, it's true. 98% of people they meet are as mentally slow or slower relative to them as a borderline mental retard of 70-79 IQ is to an average person

Yeah, but what if 98% of the people you meet say that the world is full of morons?

Re:I'm amazed

[Hurricane78]

Why is she actively disturbing evolution?

I think it's a good thing to take resources from the stupid, and give it to the smart. And that's what's happening. Even if you do not like it. :)

Re:I'm amazed

[libkarl2]

My mother works at a bank and she has to talk people out of these scams on a regular basis

I always knew that these scams were practically a national pastime in Nigeria, but what I didn't know is that not only do people still fall for these things (apparently in droves)... but often it takes a small army of professional hostage negotiators to talk them out of wiring their entire life's savings to a total stranger over in a country whose rate of societal corruption rivals OURS!!

The reality of it all is what blows me away!

Re:I'm amazed

[story645]

The basic rule of any con is that "You can't cheat an honest person".

Except for the "starving children" scams that prey on a person's honesty. Lots of those, and they like praying on religious communities.

Re:I'm amazed

[lwsimon]

I wish my school had that :(

I took an IQ test - well, 3 actually - with a psychiatric program in college, and tested 143, 144, and 143.

High school was four years of torture for me, and by the time college rolled around, I was so sick of sitting in classes listening to things I already knew, I just stopped going. My high school didn't offer anything AP or college prep, so I was stuck taking introductory-level classes in college.

I truly think that had I been challenged (or remotely interested) in high school, I would have excelled in college. As is, It's taken me five years to establish a decent work history and start to work myself back to where I was in the eyes of employers. I'm now in a position where my day consists almost entirely of problem-solving, and couldn't be happier..

Reading over that -- I'm not trying to talk myself up, but comment on how awesome that program is. I'm sure most of Slashdot can related to how I feel.

Re:I'm amazed

[Nursie]

Also (self reply), yes, the world IS full of morons. But then it doesn't take a genius to work that one out!

Re:I'm amazed

[not already in use]

Some of the most successful business people I've met were utter morons, but OCD in a way that translated into awesome business sense. On the other hand, I've met a lot of extremely smart people who are lazy unmotivated pot heads, who let their own intelligence alienate themselves from the rest of society.

Re:I'm amazed

[Tom]

Yeah, that's the part that I don't get.

At what point did her husband take the stupid pill and forgot to take away her options of ruining him?

Re:I'm amazed

[master5o1]

I wonder whether she works for Microsoft

Re:I'm amazed

[Nursie]

I'm not too alienated, I hope, but I did smoke a lot of pot when I was younger. Wonder how prevalent that is...

Re:I'm amazed

[merreborn]

My mother works at a bank and she has to talk people out of these scams on a regular basis, and refuses to deposit the obviously fake checks. It's almost unbelievable how convinced these people are that it's not a scam.

My wife said the same thing, during her brief stint as a teller a little over a year ago. The "You've won the Irish Loto! Just send us $4,500 to cover taxes" scam was pretty popular as well. Every time, she'd ask, "Now, did you *enter* the Irish Lottery? No? Well, you really can't win if you don't enter, can you?"

Re:I'm amazed

[DrLang21]

She says it almost invariably comes from poorly educated people in down and out life situations. It's like they're clinging to a false hope.

Droves? I know she's told me specifically about at least three cases in the last year. This is a bank branch in a fairly small and very rural area (cities with populations in the 30,000 to 40,000 range). I can only imagine what happens in densely populated areas like where I live now.

Re:I'm amazed

[CrimsonAvenger]

once and awhile

Traditionally, the phrase is "once in a while".

Re:I'm amazed

[denton420]

Where I grew up most schools had a gifted program(IQ 130-140).

The gifted class I was in had around 25 kids in it.

There was even a highly gifted program for IQs of 140 and above down the road from my school but I missed the cut by 1 point. Thank god. All those kids were weirdos/losers :P

That highly gifted class had only about 10 students in it however.

The school district was one of the largest in the country, Broward county.

And yeah Cblit, if that stuff is all true, thanks for explaining why I find most people to be complete morons...no matter how hard I try. Sadly enough -_-

Re:I'm amazed

[billcopc]

Methinks his unit granularity is rather broad :)

Re:I'm amazed

[E 99]

Yet, somehow she thinks that sharing HER story with the world will convince other people? If only someone had shared their story with her, she could have avoided this terrible mess, so she's going to make sure it doesn't happen to others? Please. Even in acknowledging her stupidity, she shows no sense.

I don't think this is true. It's true that she listened to no one after she got sucked into the scam. That's normal psychology. In investment it's called throwing good money after bad. Bottom line, she didn't want to accept that everything she sent away so far was a loss, so instead she did the only other alternative -- she sent in more money. However, if she had been familiar with the scam before she sent anything, she probably wouldn't have fallen for it. So I think her point is legitimate. By making the scam even well more well-known than it is, fewer people will get sucked into it in the first place.

Re:I'm amazed

[joto]

Why don't you say the same thing about Muslims and Buddhists? Afraid they might blow you up or sit on you? :-/

Another good reason would be that most religious people he/she knows personally, are christians. While all religions are silly, the fact that well-educated people who grew up in a secular western society still prefer self-delusion to truth, is more puzzling than that somebody less fortunate choose so. After all, humans have had religion since early prehistoric times, and unless you get some proper education, it's unlikely that you'd stop right now.

Maybe if you stopped your stupid stereotyping of religions and actually looked into any of them, you'd be surprised. But you won't do that

Most atheists know more about religion than most religious people. Which is why most people who don't give it much thought end up as religious. I am atheist because I've studied various religions, and have discovered that they are all bullshit!

I bet you'd never expect that from a Christian, would you

I still haven't heard of a church that wants married couples to avoid sex. I don't get it, do you believe christians shouldn't have kids either?

I've got a crap load of skepticism, and I for one, don't find anything scientific that satisfactorily explains how all this got here. I'm not saying that any particular religion has a better explanation, either, because there are serious holes in a lot of those, too.

I don't have a satisfactory explanation either. That doesn't mean I will accept a claim that it was all created by some supernatural being(s). As a matter of fact, I don't understand the financial crisis either, but I certainly don't blame God for it.

But you really need to start thinking for yourself, rather than mudslinging.

I'm sure the grandparent poster is capable of thinking for himself. He is even telling exactly why religions is not thinking for oneself. This is not mudslinging, and there's no reason to stop doing it.

Re:I'm amazed

[aliquis]

Ah, so that's why we don't reproduce!

Re:I'm amazed

[BlackSabbath]

You hit the nail exactly on the head.

Its not only sad, it seems to be a fundamental part of human nature. Witness the recent economic "meltdown". When the impulse to have that which you don't overpowers your common-sense - that's greed. People wanting to buy their own little mansion when common-sense tells you there is no way they can afford it? Greed. People wanting to push ridiculous loans on unsuspecting marks without thinking there would be repurcussions? Greed. Financiers buying "securitised" debt with one eye closed to the obvious flakiness of the underlying asset? Greed. Politicians and central bankers blithely greasing the wheels of this ridiculous machine by loosening regulation and increasing the money supply all the while trying to convince themselves and the public that its not all one big pyramid scheme? Greed.

For future reference:
Nothing comes out of nothing. Not energy and not money (defined here as actual, real purchasing power, not pieces of paper with funny symbols on it).

Out of interest, has anybody done any reading regarding the evolutionary basis of greed?

Re:I'm amazed

[Bloater]

It's a skewed normal, with the mean at 100 and at least one person over 200, for 50% to be below the mean you'd need one with a negative IQ.

So it is likely that far /more/ than 50% have below average intelligence otherwise you need somebody who actually removes intelligence from the universe.

Or is that what politicians are for?

Re:I'm amazed

[Arthur B.]

No, most likely 0 people are of average intelligence. And, no 50% aren't necessarily below either.

Re:I'm amazed

[StickyWidget]

Traditionally, the phrase is "once in a while".

"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

Maybe you should go with: "I do not agree with what you say, so I will correct spelling and/or grammar mistakes, even in informal settings, until I do".

~Sticky

Re:I'm amazed

[SlashBugs]

Heh, you're right. That'll teach me not to try correcting other people's stats in public.

Mind you, I have met a few people who make my head hurt trying to talk to them; I can believe that they suck intelligence out of the universe.

Re:I'm amazed

[Shark]

Dunno, a few con artists told some countries that their company should be in charge of issuing all the money, as loan, and then that company sets and gets interest on it. And all these countries need to do is tax people's income in order to pay for those interests.

Re:I'm amazed

[Sockatume]

Well, in that instance the 1 genius would be a dumbass for using the mean when the distribution of intelligence clearly makes it an unsuitable measure, so you have a world of 100 dumbasses and everything balances out.

Re:I'm amazed

[Retric]

http://www.hoagiesgifted.org/underserved.htm

I mostly stuck it out with normal students, but I was classified Exceptionally Gifted / Learning Disabled so they really had no clue what to do with me. For example in Algebra II when I did the end of chapter homework for the next chapter without noticing. In class the next day I was like Hmm, I should probably pay attention next time, but what was I supposed to do when it took the class a 2 weeks to catch up to the idea that 3 unknowns in 3 equations was basically the same as 2 vs. 2 when I got that in around 5 seconds.

The basic problem seems to be once you start accelerating students they tend to graduate early without being ready for the next step. So what if I could have passed the GED at 12, I was still not ready for collage so what's the point.

Re:I'm amazed

[hairyfeet]

Don't forget these things are also sent to old folks that are a LOT more trusting and whose mental facilities are often dulled by age. When my mom was working home health she'd have to talk old folks out of scams like this at least 3 or 4 times a year. She looked on them as a perfect excuse to get the kids involved more with their parents day to day lives. After all,nothing wakes a kid up like "Did you know your parent was about to mortgage their house to pay a scammer?". I'm sure that call from my mom was a nice reality check at how trusting and easily led their mom/dad was.

Re:I'm amazed

[Retric]

~1 in 40 people are 133+ so it's not that high a bar.

Re:I'm amazed

[Anonymous Coward]

ha! hilarious slip - "praying on religious communities"

Re:I'm amazed

[Actually, I do RTFA]

So, if you meet a genius, and (s)he says the world is full of morons, you've got to realize that from their perspective, it's true. 98% of people they meet are as mentally slow or slower relative to them as a borderline mental retard of 70-79 IQ is to an average person.

I don't get it, 98% seems awfully low.

If you're at or above 140, you're a fscking genius, on any scale. And if you're above 140, then 98% of the population (80..120 +

Oh, now I get it. Morons with their IQ of only 140 somehow get refered to as a genius.

Re:I'm amazed

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I suddenly realized sarcasm may not travel well over the intertubes.

Re:I'm amazed

[Maguscrowley]

Did you mean to point out my mistake to show something about the content, or the reliability of the source? Or are you doing this because you think that all misuse of grammar on the Internet should be reason for public ridicule?

I made a mistake when editing my post resulting in bad grammar. Obviously that invalidates the point I was making below it.

In anticipation of a tu quoque: Yes, my post was an attack. However, it contained useful information and a content driven rebuttal. If you're going to attack people, you have the responsibility to put something meaningful into the attack. Otherwise, we're left with a meaningless flamewar.

Your pointing out my bad grammar/typo momentarily hurt my pride. If this is what you're looking for, then I hope that my 1 min of shame was enjoyable.

Re:I'm amazed

[lenester]

Except for the "starving children" scams that prey on a person's honesty. Lots of those, and they like praying on religious communities.

There's a big difference between honesty and altruism. For that matter, there's a big difference between proper altruism and "aww, poor kid" emotional responses.

Re:I'm amazed

[kefler]

You're talking about their 401k's in the U.S. Stock market, right??

Re:I'm amazed

[beav007]

Then the vast majority are not bright enough, or are cynical enough to realise that that includes them as well.

Re:I'm amazed

[CrimsonAvenger]

Alternately, I could assume that illiterate people were actually very clever. Which seems to be the stance of many semi-literate people.

But that would basically be stupid. So I won't.

Re:I'm amazed

[brkello]

Umm, not that I support religion bashing...but after reading the parent...what the heck are you talking about? What does Christians telling married people to have sex have to do with anything? The word Christian is almost meaningless in the sense that your beliefs vary widely between churches

It is true that you have to throw a lot of logic and skepticism out the window to just believe. That's fine, it is your choice. But don't make it seem like you guys are so discriminated against. Particularly when you don't allow homosexuals the right to marry. I know it is in the Bible. But it also says in the bible that if you marry a woman who isn't a virgin that you can stone her to death. It is this pick and choose what you believe stuff that is really annoying to people on the outside. I'll fight for your right to believe what you want to believe. But when you use your religion to creates laws to oppress others...I am not going to feel too sorry for your vast majority in American when people criticize you.

Re:I'm amazed

[YrWrstNtmr]

Yeah, but what if 98% of the people you meet say that the world is full of morons?

They're right. It IS full of morans.

Re:I'm amazed

[dubl-u]

I think it's a good thing to take resources from the stupid, and give it to the smart. And that's what's happening. Even if you do not like it. :)

The underlying problem is that the Nigerian scammers may be smart, but they are not productive. They aren't making the world richer or better; they're just diverting value other people have generated.

From an evolutionary perspective, scammers are parasites on their own species. I don't know how much it happens in the real world, but I've seen simulations where self-parasitization causes species to go extinct. The parasite genes become enormously successful for a period, until the parasites crowd out the non-parasites, causing a drastic population crash.

So if you really want to support evolution here, you should be for sterilizing the scammers for sure, and possibly the people who fall for them.

Re:I'm amazed

[spiffmastercow]

I was in that program (though the one I was in was based on the standardized test for 2nd grade.. only admitted those at the 99th percentile), and from what I remember there were about 5 people in that class. I loved it, but to be honest it was a joke, just like regular class. Instead of trying to teach stuff, we were given access to computers, art supplies, high school level text books, and a chess board. I spent most of my time in that class either playing chess or playing Lemmings.

Re:I'm amazed

[BlackSabbath]

I don't necessarily disagree.

Greed is possibly the single greatest motivator. In a world of finite resources, competing with other organisms, I want to secure as much as possible for me and mine. However, as with a great many things, the speed with which we have evolved our technical ability to procure resources far beyond what we actually need for survival, has possibly outstripped the usefulness of this evolutionary impulse to greed. This is possibly why we see such ridiculous excesses.

Please note that I have personally experienced such compulsion myself. As a recovering compulsive gambler I presume to know pretty much what this lady was thinking.

Re:I'm amazed

[Savione]

Yeah, that's the part that I don't get.

At what point did her husband take the stupid pill and forgot to take away her options of ruining him?

From TFA:

She also communicates with lightning-fast sign language with her hearing-impaired husband.

Perhaps that has something to do with it? It seems to me that the spouse that can communicate better with other people is more likely to handle financial affairs.

Re:I'm amazed

[spidercoz]

the joke goes like this: "Think of how stupid the average person is, and then realize half of them are stupider than that." Yet another nugget of wisdom from good ol' uncle George.

Re:I'm amazed

[dubl-u]

Janella, no, you're not a sucker or an easy mark. You're the dumbest fucking person on Earth.

I'm not disagreeing. But smarts -- at least in the sense of high IQ score -- doesn't have much to do with it. There were plenty of smart people on Wall Street, but a lot of them devoted most of that brainpower to fooling themselves and each other. IQ is a tool that you can use for good or ill.

So being smart is one possible way to avoid getting scammed, but there are other ways: she would have been just as well served by more humility, modesty, wisdom, experience, self control, or respect for family and friends. And a bit more mistrust of strangers would have been good, too.

Re:I'm amazed

[Dan541]

We need a National Dipshit Register. So these people can be flagged.

Re:I'm amazed

[Dan541]

Where the scam? If your paid upfront does it matter where you send the completed work?

Re:I'm amazed

[StickyWidget]

Hmm. Interesting point. However, when we make judgments about how people write, are we not unfairly judging the person to be lacking of intelligence? The circumstances with which they write may not be known to us, to presuppose their intelligence based upon word choice, or grammar mistakes, or unfortunate command of the English language, is inherently wrong, there is at best a tenuous correlation between intelligence and mastery of grammar. One does not have to have perfect command of the English language to be intelligent, though they do need at least a relative command to be heard. A shining light bulb under a basket sheds no light on it's surroundings, but does that mean it is not bright?

To judge someone based upon an assessment of their grammar and punctuation is Stupid. In fact, I'd go on to say it's indicative of some sort of personal shortcoming, perhaps itself a lack of intelligence. A crutch, if you will, to prop up an ego that cannot expand through creative expression, so the ego limps along using the American Heritage Book of English Grammar to strike at those who the undeserving ego cannot reach by normal means.

Even your logical statement "I could assume that illiterate people are actually very clever" shows that you have at best a binary grasp on the concept of intelligence. You ignore that there are shades between 'clever' and 'stupid', that each term is inherently subjective, and arrogantly lump people in one or the other category.

I cannot pass judgment on your intelligence, for I am a fallible (and angry) human being. But I can pass one judgment with confidence: You are unqualified to judge the intelligence of others, just like everyone else.

~Sticky
/It's feed the troll Thursday! Huzzah

Re:I'm amazed

[williamhb]

The basic rule of any con is that "You can't cheat an honest person".

Tell that to the taxpayers who have just bailed out Wall Street...

Re:I'm amazed

[dubl-u]

Although it's possible she's mentally ill, I wouldn't bet on it. I know people who have been taken in scams for substantial money, and they're both smart and sane. It's just that they don't have much experience in dealing with highly manipulative people who have a lot of practice in fooling honest citizens.

If you're interested in the topic, I highly recommend the book The Big Con. It's a great cultural portrait of scam artists of the 1930s. They took advantage not of madness but of normal parts of human nature.

Re:I'm amazed

[hotdiggitydawg]

Apparenthy there's a few in congress too...

Re:I'm amazed

[Dan541]

My Dog is smarter the most of the Australian population. She got zapped by an electric fence once and learned not to mess with it.

I see many humans doing stupid things, and they don't learn.

"The ability to speak, does not make you intelligent" -Qui-Gon Jinn

Re:I'm amazed

[erroneus]

It is quite amazing to me really. When talking about movies, we call it "suspension of disbelief." Suspension of disbelief allows people to enjoy and "get into" a movie. The same thing occurs every time someone brings a god belief into the frame. If we were to explain why the financial crisis occurred and claim that God did it to punish sinners, most people would write that off as stupid. If I were to claim that computers run on magical forces simply because most people don't understand them, the vast majority of people would write that off as stupid as well. If I were to assert that a god has punished people for having sinned when they have a disease, deformity or deformed children, most people would deny it citing various identified medical causes.

Religion doesn't explain much of anything any longer, but that's still not enough to shake the faith of many... because human consciousness, emotion and memory have yet to have an adequate explanation for most people and so that alone is enough for people to cling to the notion of having an eternal spirit. I find it interesting, however, that in spite of the fact that we do not yet fully understand how the brain works, we do know that various behaviors and aspects of the mind, including tendencies for malicious and reckless behavior, are closely linked to the balances of chemistry in the brain which is strong enough evidence for me and many others that it is indication that if the quality and personality of the mind can be affected by chemical balances, then it's not a spirit that guides one's actions and that many things people do are not entirely their own free will.

One thing I have to wonder, though... is a tendency to disbelieve in any gods indication of a defect or of positive evolution, because that tendency is likely as closely linked to brain chemistry as homosexuality is. Some people are easier to brainwash than others... some people are easier to hypnotize than others... and some people are more likely to believe in gods than others. Who is superior and who is defective? I'll leave that for the reader to decide, but I think my leanings are easy to identify -- being convinced of a reality based on "emotional" evidence is most certainly a sign of weakness and is an exploitable weakness of the mind... "war on terror" anyone?

Re:I'm amazed

[OSXCPA]

Only problem with your solution - those who need it most will understand it least, and be most likely to deny being stupid, and therefore won't realize they are the target audience.
Good idea though.

Re:I'm amazed

[Xoron101]

Or how about the fact that during times of turmoil, the Jehovah's Witnesses start to make the rounds (more often than usual). I guess if you're depressed from your investments going in the toilet, you might turn to their God.

Re:I'm amazed

[OSXCPA]

I'm curious - I read the article, and I could not see how she is 'clearly mentally ill'. I am not an expert in mental health though - what makes her mentally ill and not just an idiot who got fixated on a scam? I see hordes of similar people every week heading for the casinos near the city I live in so they can pump their social security and savings into one-armed bandits. They are clearly stupid and obsessed, but hardly mentally ill, unless we are going down the 'addictive behavior is a disease' road. Not trying to be sarcastic, BTW, I'm serious about wondering how you reached your conclusion.

Re:I'm amazed

[dubl-u]

I'm not a Christian-basher, and have plenty of family and friends that are religious. However, this guy's got a point.

Some churches I've visited strike me as very reasonable places. But others actively work a lot of the same mechanisms that scammers use. The main difference between a scam artist and a cult leader is that the scam artist builds his game around leaving town eventually, whereas cult leaders build to last. Scammers are mainly after money, whereas cult leaders take not just money but time, attention, and love.

And sure, you can say that your church is different than some cult. Maybe yours is. But there's no hard line separating the most reasonable church from the craziest cult; it's a matter of degree, a continuum. All of them try to get people to think and behave differently, and I've never heard of one that doesn't benefit from that through tithes, donations, service, and support.

That doesn't mean I'm against people joining churches; it seems to do some a lot of good. But when somebody rings my doorbell to tell me that their invisible, magical friend will do good things for me if I just give their organization 10% of my income and get others to do the same, then I have a hard time not classifying that as a scam, even if the person ringing my doorbell is perfectly likable.

Re:I'm amazed

[LingNoi]

ok, lets pretend it wasn't a scam and she would have really ended up with 10 million.

Please tell me what part of her helping them illegally launder money is honest?

It's pure greed, she knew it was illegal, she knew it wasn't honest but she did it anyway because $_$ ching ching! 10 MILLION US DOLLARS

Re:I'm amazed

[dubl-u]

Until you get paid, it's not a high-yield investment; it's a high-risk investment.

That is the smartest single sentence I've read all week.

Re:I'm amazed

[LingNoi]

Perhaps he still doesn't know.

Re:I'm amazed

[mr_stinky_britches]

LOL! Praying on religious communities; That's great...mmm..the lulz.

Re:I'm amazed

[dubl-u]

[...] I worked with the general public (retail sales, waiting, bartender) and by doing this it was made painfully clear that most people out there are fucked In the head [...]

You think that's scary? At some point, you will realize that you are one of those people.

Every couple of years reality will whack me across the face with a 2x4 and I'll realize that I've spent my whole life being an idiot about something.

As far as I can tell, that happens eventually to everybody except people who are crazy and/or dumb enough that they never notice their flaws. So now I've come to kinda sorta welcome the 2x4. It hurts like hell, but at least it's a chance to improve.

Re:I'm amazed

[cephah]

Oops sorry about that. Voted redundant instead of insightful :o

Re:I'm amazed

[Dan541]

You mean like this?

http://tinyurl.com/6rywju

Re:I'm amazed

[Torvaun]

Then you must be who they're talking about.

Re:I'm amazed

[treeves]

Close - 50% are below MEDIAN intelligence. If the distribution is perfectly symmetrical and therefore the mean equals the median, then your statement is correct.

Re:I'm amazed

[HappyEngineer]

An IQ of 100 is the 50th percentile. You have exactly half the world stupider than you, and half the world smarter than you.

I've seen a lot of ads which say that Bush and Palin's IQs are over 110. I'm pretty sure those ads are full of shit.

But if they are actually telling the truth then that proves that the concept of IQ is bullshit. There is no way that I will ever believe that 75% of the population is dumber than Bush or Palin. Those two people are practically the definition of below average intelligence.

Palin would get seriously spanked on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?".

Re:I'm amazed

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Heck, often times it's the same religious communities that scam honest people. For example, asking money to support missions that spend a great chunk of their time not helping but evangelizing.

Re:I'm amazed

[Free the Cowards]

Most likely they're in cahoots with Joe Smith. They send you a bad check that's created in such a way as to not reveal its badness for a few weeks. You cash it, wait a week, it hasn't bounced so you assume that it's good. You then send your work along with a good check to Joe Smith. Now he has your money, and you lose their money when their bad check finally bounces.

It's a more complicated variant on the common scam where somebody offers to buy something from you, but they overpay you and ask for change. To make sure that you're safe, ensure that the money only flows in one direction. You might still get ripped off for your work or your merchandise, but at least you won't lose money too.

Re:I'm amazed

[Tomfrh]

People go wierd when they are being scammed. They get really defensive if you point it out. Twice I've pointed out scams to people, and both times they were highly resistant to the information.

Re:I'm amazed

[OSXCPA]

To your point about stereotyping - one of the difficulties with fighting the stereotyping of religions is that the 'major' faiths (christianity, judaism, islam - lower case intentional) are dogma-based. It is very easy to stereotype a population that insists on jamming the basis for such stereotypes down everyone elses throats. I share a neighborhood with a bunch of jehovas' witnesses who insist that god wants them to keep knocking on my door and littering my mailbox, front walkway and car windshield with leaflets. Were I to stereotype them as being a bunch of people who spend their weekends littering other peoples homes and cars with leaflets, how far off the mark would I be? Would it be unfair of me? Most religious expression, in my experience, involves someone telling everyone around them, with great force and repetition, that things for which they have no actual proof are indeed true. If I generalize this behavior to religions in general, is that a stereotype, or in some way inappropriate?

Your pastor example wasn't terribly well-aimed, by the way - he was promoting sex among married christian couples. When your pastor starts encouraging sex between people who love each other, regardless of race, marital status or gender, I'll be impressed. The stereotype of christians isn't that sex is dirty, it's that sex with someone the church doesn't approve of is dirty - which appears to be the case here, no? Am I stereotyping when I suggest your pastor would be horrified at the thought of two men having sex every day for a week, or is that simply the truth?

I'd love an example of what we might find if we 'stopped stereotyping religions'. The problem is, if you look past the stereotypes and the denial of reason - and I'd be willing to look past those to some degree, because as you point out, we don't have all the answers on the 'science' side of the house either - you end up with intolerance and vitriol. Think I'm overgeneralizing? Try being gay in a christian, jewish or muslim community and see how you fare. The Anglican church tried to open up and tolerate gays and lesbians (I give them capitals for that) and what happened? The church is disintegrating.

Stereotypes can be helpful too - I was raised catholic. By associating priests with pedophilia (truly a stereotype, as pedophile priests are a tiny minority of the priesthood) I desensitized myself to the catholic symbols and mechanisms of oppression. Now, instead of seeing a 'father' I see a 'creepy pervert'. Such stereotyping helped flush the 'papal poison' from my memetic scheme.

Now, why again should we stop stereotyping religions and embrace them? I'll consider it when they stop stereotyping and start embracing everyone who does not believe as they do. When they stop mudslinging and worse, trying to deny the full, legitimate humanity of others based on *their* dogma, I'll grant them some respect. Until that time, given the chance, I will sling mud and take every shot, cheap or fair, that I can - I am still playing more fairly than they do.

Re:I'm amazed

[Phurge]

Perhaps it is more intelligent to realise that not everyone will be intelligent. Stupid people will always exist just the same as people with Aspergers will always exist.

Re:I'm amazed

[PaganRitual]

Why don't you say the same thing about Muslims and Buddhists? Afraid they might blow you up or sit on you?

Ah, I believe this is called "fatwa envy", gotta love it. Do you wish you had the guts/stupidity/mental imbalancement to be able to become violent to someone that has simply said things against something that you believe in? That's only mildly less concerning than the people that actually do.

There's a Christian pastor close to where I live that just issued a challenge to his congregation, for all the married couples to have sex every day for a week. Another a couple of hours drive away recently issued a similar challenge, but it was ever day for a month.

I bet you'd never expect that from a Christian, would you. Especially a Christian leader

Wait, what? Christian leaders attempting to take control or dictate terms of their congregations sexual lifestyle? This is exactly what we'd expect of them. Exactly. This holds absolutely no suprise, and I'm confused as to how you could possibly parade it as a positive point at all.

But you won't do that, because you'd rather not even have any information that conflicts with what you believe.

This was basically the point he was trying to make. And as most people know, the easiest way to become and athiest is to actually look into religions as see what they believe and what they are about. If that doesn't work then it's only for a overabundance of I ... just ... I don't know ... GHFJZZ&^%$!$!ZZZZ####ERROR CODE#542-HYPOCRISY_GAUGE_OVERLOAD - PLEASE REBOOT SYSTEM

Re:I'm amazed

[aliquis]

Made me wonder, in what way does Slashdot users lack competence*?

Then I got it, in the social area of course, so well, it even turned out to make sense!

(* Typical nerd to see it as theoretical knowledge and then miss this basic practical human thing I guess :D. What RFC # for this male to female handshaking procedure you're talking about?)

Re:I'm amazed

[rubah]

I was at the bank buying some Euros to go to France this summer and this very redneck couple came in, the woman leading the man, and I couldn't help but listen as the lady at the counter did exactly as your mother does.

This woman said she had been a little leery, so not as bad as it could be, I guess.

Re:I'm amazed

[owlstead]

Please try to have them spend as little money as possible and inform their relatives. They may try to influence them, or in the worst case have their accounts blocked. No reason for them to become bankrupt because of old age.

Re:I'm amazed

[slartibart]

I see the Christian bashers are out today.

Why don't you say the same thing about Muslims and Buddhists? Afraid they might blow you up or sit on you? :-/

No, it's because Muslims and Buddhists don't show up at my door and ask me if I'm saved. They may be just as delusional as Christians but they're quieter about it (most of them anyway).

Re:I'm amazed

[Falconhell]

And THATS a good thing!

See: http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=MPLt-u-H8AA

Re:I'm amazed

[pablodiazgutierrez]

This is why there are new Christians converted every day. They want to believe (It is called FAITH) and they will throw out every ounce of scepticism, logic, knowledge and understanding that conflicts with what they want to believe.

Exactly. In Spain they teach religion in public schools for those students whose parents choose so. They say its faith-neutral, but it's the bishops who decide who teaches it, so it's all BS. Anyway, I remember one kid asked the priest who taught my class why he believed in Catholicism. His answer was simply "because it is so sad to think that after this life there is nothing else". I wonder why he didn't believe in winning the lotto that weekend; It's the same logic.

Re:I'm amazed

[Falconhell]

Thats the difference between intelligence and stupidity-theres a limit to intelligence!

Re:I'm amazed

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Leviticus is the way to go. One of these days I'm going to read it myself instead of just through quotes. I'm kinda excited. Saw VI excited, that is.

Re:I'm amazed

[Dan541]

ah the old charge back scam, I'm familiar with that one from eBay. I'm not sure what you can really do apart from trying to verify the identity of the buyer.

Re:I'm amazed

[pablodiazgutierrez]

Well, the Muslims did send their people to convert the infidels. Just not through kind words, but the way the crusaders would centuries later. They're all the same load.

Re:I'm amazed

[Free the Cowards]

If they pay by check, refuse to cash the excessively large check and insist that they give you one for the exact amount. If they pay electronically, refund their payment and insist that they pay you the exact amount. (PayPal and any other reasonable payment system will allow you to refund a payment in such a way that if the payment ends up being fraudulent, you still lose nothing, like not cashing a bogus check.)

Of course you're still vulnerable to losing merchandise to an exact bogus payment, but the thing that really hurts with the charge back scam is that you lose not only the merchandise but also the change. Protection from regular old bad payments is another more difficult topic.

Re:I'm amazed

[smegged]

Strange modding something so inflamatory as insightful.

well-educated people who grew up in a secular western society still prefer self-delusion to truth

I've studied various religions, and have discovered that they are all bullshit!

religions is not thinking for oneself

If a Christian, Bhuddist, Muslim or Taoist had have come on here and started saying those same things about atheists they would be rightly modded as flamebait.

Re:I'm amazed

[not already in use]

Yeah I'm quite fond of the drug myself...

Re:I'm amazed

[rohan972]

201, 130, 130, 130, 109, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60

50% > 100
50% < 100
mean = 100

Re:I'm amazed

[ignavus]

In a world of 99 uniform dumbasses and 1 genius, 99% would be below mean intelligence.

And if the genius is an Evil Genius, the 99% will be slaves. (Thinking out aloud) Presumably around half of them would be sex slaves...

Hmmm. Evil Genius ... maybe I should switch from being a Goody-goody Genius. Purely for scientific research, of course.

Re:I'm amazed

[CrimsonAvenger]

Interesting point. However, when we make judgments about how people write, are we not unfairly judging the person to be lacking of intelligence? The circumstances with which they write may not be known to us, to presuppose their intelligence based upon word choice, or grammar mistakes, or unfortunate command of the English language, is inherently wrong, there is at best a tenuous correlation between intelligence and mastery of grammar. One does not have to have perfect command of the English language to be intelligent,

True enough. I should have used the word "ignorant" instead of "stupid". Or perhaps "uneducated".

That said, if we assume a native speaker of English (the use of euphemisms alone is usually enough to recognize a native speaker), then it's pretty fair to say that someone with only a tenuous grasp of grammar and/or spelling fits the definition of "semiliterate". Look the word up if you doubt me.

Note further that many, if not most, slashdotters more or less automatically assume they're quite a bit brighter than the average person.

And that quite a few slashdotters have no more than a weak grip on grammar, punctuation and spelling. And yes, I can usually tell the difference between typos and misspellings - it's not too hard, if you know where the keys on a keyboard are to figure out the common miskeys. Using (for instance) "there" when you mean "their" isn't one of those common miskeys.

Note that in the case in question, the writer had obviously heard a euphemism, but never seen it written, or heard it spoken by someone using "standard" pronunciation (almost noone uses standard pronunciation, we all have regional accents that vary to a greater or lesser degree). He attempted to spell the phrase as he'd understood it, and guessed wrong. Happens all the time. Oddly enough, it happens less to people who read a lot than to people who only read when forced to.

Re:I'm amazed

[Hurricane78]

The problem is, that if you're not a bank, there is no such thing as generating value (out of thin air).
In the end, every product is just the result of material plus work, plus more material, plus more work, and so on.
The pixel of the dot this letter "I" here, somewhere down the production line, was just stuff digged up from the earth, that got transformed by processed (eg. lifeforms). And I mean the real display pixel, and the virtual information, existing as energy in the real world.

I still agree that they are somewhat like parasites. But if it's a successful evolutionary model, and in 500 years Nigeria's scammers' children take over the world because they could feed them and buy stuff, then they won anyway. ;9
Now we will see if they destroy themselves too in the process. But I guess they just do something else then.

We, of course work for ourselves.
Because in the end we're just expanding biomass, fighting for resources.

So we should sterilize everyone who is not useful in some way to expand *our* biomass.
But nowadays nearly everyone is useful, or we can't harm him.

Ok, I admit to having a very evil world view to those who preach that you should help others.
But if my genes win... am I right anyway?
Of course, those who lost will say that I am wrong, because they wanted to win. ;)

I could endlessly discuss this topic, but I stop now, let you come to your own conclusions, and apologize for this way too long post. ;)

Re:I'm amazed

[Hurricane78]

I know.

My father (Afghani) had 13 siblings. Two of them died. And they were rich down there. (Before the Russians and Americans came to fight each other.)

On the other hand, a good friend of mine, born and raised here in Germany, was the only child of her parents, which is even above average according to statistics (0.8 children per family).

But somehow, I fail to see the relation to my comment. :)

Re:I'm amazed

[rohan972]

One does not have to have perfect command of the English language to be intelligent, though they do need at least a relative command to be heard. A shining light bulb under a basket sheds no light on it's surroundings, but does that mean it is not bright?

To communicate intelligence requires the appropriate use of words. "once and awhile" communicate that the author is using words without considering their meaning. A light bulb under a basket is, in effect, not bright.

A statement denouncing someone else's intelligence that is interspersed with gibberish does not reflect well on the author.

Your "light bulb under a basket" example and "I cannot pass judgment ..." lead me to suspect you are a Christian. I suggest you ponder on the bible's advice to keep company with the wise and avoid the company of the foolish. How are we to do this if we don't judge?

Re:I'm amazed

[Thing 1]

Does that involve the ban of any reproduction for them?
If not, it's worthless. :)

Yeah, especially if it's not retroactive.

Re:I'm amazed

[roman_mir]

Saw Bill Maher show a few days ago, I liked this comment on US Republicans who are financially below average and are against government ran health care:

(from memory, so not exact comment)

...Like those Republicans with not even basic health insurance, those who have only a couple of good teeth left... 'It's like their brains are damaged and they need to have their heads checked. Only they don't have health insurance and so they can't afford to have their heads checked.

Same here, many people don't realize how basically dumb they are, because if they realized it and tried to do something about it, that would be the proof that they are not that dumb after all.

--
(note, that I am not pro state ran health care, I am for a dual system)

Re:I'm amazed

[nolife]

I talked a fellow van pooler out of a Craigslist scam to rent a room she had. It was the classic cashing of a fake money order and send money Western Union to a shipper etc.. I overheard her talking to her bank trying to do the money transfer after she "deposited" the scammers check. Even after explaining the scam to her, she still did not fully comprehend what was going on. She said she knew when the lady was flying into the country and she wanted to confront her and ask if it was a scam, I told her again, THERE IS NO PERSON FLYING HERE, there will be no person coming to the US to rent your room. Then she wondered what to do with the money she got from the money order. She was so fooled by the whole thing and it took her a few days and a call to the police to finally comprehend what was going on. Luckily she did not actually send any money out.
You are 100% right, some people have absolutely NO idea what is going on.

Re:I'm amazed

[flimflam]

Mean, Median and Mode. In a world of 99 uniform dumbasses and 1 genius, 99% would be below mean intelligence.

Not sure where you get the 50% from.

I don't know - I've met a lot of mean dumbasses and come to think of it, a lot of them were in uniform.

Frankly, I think that the average person is pretty mean.

OK, I'll go sit in the corner now...

Re:I'm amazed

[roman_mir]

atheists don't believe in any good without proof, but except for that fact and probably better education on average, there probably will be less common grounds between any set of atheists then between people within any religion.

Re:I'm amazed

[Hubbell]

I stand corrected, the passage I described is from Leviticus

Re:I'm amazed

[smegged]

It's amazing, you managed to go a whole post without making any comment relevant to my post.

There are intelligent, well informed people of every mainstream religion, yet in the eyes of the GP it is ok to sledge them as being irrational, stupid and self-delusional.

If a religious person came on here and made the same comments about another religion or atheism then they would be rightly modded flamebait. Yet the moderators appear to have modded the GP insightful because he shares their irrational stereotyping of religious people.

Re:I'm amazed

[stephanruby]

There's a Christian pastor close to where I live that just issued a challenge to his congregation, for all the married couples to have sex every day for a week. Another a couple of hours drive away recently issued a similar challenge, but it was ever day for a month. I bet you'd never expect that from a Christian, would you. Especially a Christian leader.

That's not the root of the problem. Seeing sex as an obligation, a chore, is the exact problem most sexless married couples have. Reinforcing that point is only going to make that tendency worse.

If you're married and if you've stopped having sex, aside from any obvious physical/psychological/drug changes either of you may have had, you should also take a look at how your partner or yourself use sex to reward/punish/seek approval from each other. For instance, if your wife gives you sex because you took out the trash this morning, or because you gave her an expensive gift, or conversely, if your wife withholds sex anytime she doesn't get what she wants from you, then it means you have slowly conditioned her and she has slowly conditioned herself to only see sex as an obligation or a chore. This is the same problem that many prostitutes have, once they associate sex as a currency or a job, then it becomes ever more difficult to get any kind of intrinsic pleasure out of it.

And having a pastor telling you to have sex on a schedule, because that's your responsibility -- your obligation -- your duty -- then that's only going to turn you off even more and that's only going to make you lose even more respect for your marriage partner. Pastors should just stop making up rules for everyone. The World doesn't run on simple rules. The World can not just run on obligation and guilt.

Re:I'm amazed

[atraintocry]

Unless she's trying to make some of that money back with a book deal or a spot on a VH1 reality show.

Re:I'm amazed

[Blazeheart]

Yeah, but she is going to get that money back within 2 years -- by selling the rights to her story..... but first, she has to put up a small investment to get the agent working.......

The sad part is that that is probably true. (darn English and that 'that that'(XD) being grammatically correct!)

Re:I'm amazed

[dubl-u]

The problem is, that if you're not a bank, there is no such thing as generating value (out of thin air).

You confuse value and money. I went to a show the other night to hear a favorite singer. She generated value out of thin air, and I gave her money for it. Money I got because I generated value for somebody else.

If you're interested in the topic, Frozen Desire is a very interesting read.

Re:I'm amazed

[bwcbwc]

This is where PHBs come from, too. People who erroneously believe they are competent do more damage than competent people who do evil seeking their own gain. These people are so incompetent they don't even realize that they ARE incompetent, whether it's due to lack of knowledge or just lack of ability.

I vote we start a divorce fund for the husband.

Re:I'm amazed

[Just Some Guy]

Know what scares me? Going to the DMV to renew my driver's license. Remember, the people around you in line are actually an above-average subset of the population. That is, they're the people who have it together enough to afford a car and be able to drive it, and yet a good 75% will look like reject extras from "Deliverance". Now, imagine them standing in line to vote. Sleep well!

Re:I'm amazed

[roman_mir]

It's amazing, you managed to go a whole post without making any comment relevant to my post.

- you are just not seeing it. What possibly could Christians, Muslims or Taoists say about atheists? That atheists are not thinking for themselves or that they are bullshitters? That would be one retarded argument :)

There are intelligent, well informed people of every mainstream religion, yet in the eyes of the GP it is ok to sledge them as being irrational, stupid and self-delusional.

- if truly intelligent and well informed people chose to follow some faith in invisible gods, zombies and such, then these people are either uneducated (even though they believe themselves to be well informed) or these people are self-delusional.

Why, is it impossible to be self-delusional while still being intelligent and even well informed? Even some intelligent and well informed people sometimes chose to believe irrational things. In a very peculiar manner they just turn off that intelligence where it concerns those blind believes.

Besides, as long as deluding oneself does not actually cause any physical damage to a person, then it doesn't really matter that much.

If a religious person came on here and made the same comments about another religion or atheism then they would be rightly modded flamebait. Yet the moderators appear to have modded the GP insightful because he shares their irrational stereotyping of religious people.

- when one religious person starts making comments about religion of another person it can lead to very interesting outcomes.

Atheism is not a movement or a coherent organization of any kind. It is absence of any faiths or believes based on religious ideas.

(Of-course people being people can turn everything on its head, so people who are likely to have religious believes in the first place, can be turned into people who are just as anti-religion as they would be pro-religion. It depends on who has worked on their brain-washing last. These are not generally speaking extremely thoughtful people, they are easily lead. Some of these people are the kind who would sacrifice themselves in the name of a religion. They can be turned into the craziest revolutionaries who will actually kill the religious with fanaticism that is normally reserved for the religious. But this only proves that some people are predisposed for having faith one way or another).

Of-course I don't count such people as actually atheists, it's just that their religion was renamed really. Atheists like me usually do not conflict with the faithful, but sometimes it is just the thing to do to have a laugh. Yes, I do think that in order to be religious a person has to be either of lower education (not necessarily of lower intelligence, lower education is enough) or that the person has to cheat to him/herself and create a duality within themselves and refuse their intelligence/education to be involved much when it concerns their religion. As long as it doesn't hurt their chances of procreation (I worked in the Evolution into this) it won't do much harm.

Good night.

Re:I'm amazed

[Wes Janson]

On the other hand, I had to get a wire transfer of a decently large sum from overseas a few years back, and it was quite an interesting conversation at the bank. "That sounds an awful lot like one of those scam things" "No. No it's not." "Are you sure it's-" "Yes I'm sure, thank you, just give me the damn information please."

Re:I'm amazed

[ildon]

My brother almost got tricked by one of these scams, not because of greed, but because he was trying to rent a room in his house, and thought he was helping some cute girl from England.

Myself and his roommate (also a long time friend of his) were both wary that it was a scam (mostly because it was taking so long for her to move over, and also because her "excuses" as to why she couldn't move over yet didn't make any sense in context). Finally when he got the "check" in the mail with obvious spelling mistakes in the company name, and from a bank in the middle of nowhere in the midwest, he had to admit he'd been strung along for almost 2 months. Luckily he never lost a dime.

If he had been scammed, it would have been based on his compassion or pride, rather than greed.

Re:I'm amazed

[Coward Anonymous]

The basic rule of any con is that "You can't cheat an honest person".

Unless you're the church, of course.

Re:I'm amazed

[XDirtypunkX]

Then 2% of people are liars. Even morons know the world is full of morons.

Re:I'm amazed

[ildon]

I was in the gifted program at two different elementary schools. The first school pulled from a slightly higher socioeconomic level and had so many children in the program (almost 40) that they had to split it into two classes.

The second school had 8 children in the program including me, and all the other kids considered me the smartest person in the class.

The schools had about equal total population, and were within 15 minutes driving time from each other.

Re:I'm amazed

[pipingguy]

Key considerations for the game-players:

1) "everybody's doing it", I'm a sucker/loser if I don't join in
2) can I get out soon enough before it bursts
3) they can't catch and punish everyone, I'll be lucky

In this case, it seems that there were _so many_ playing the game with such high stakes that 3) is coming true and there will be bailouts (i.e., reward for bad behaviour)

Re:I'm amazed

[Jedi Alec]

I'm sure that call from my mom was a nice reality check at how trusting and easily led their mom/dad was.

Sounds like a good time to bring up the old "let's talk about your will, mom" discussion again, I'll be right over!

Re:I'm amazed

[Degrees]

I'm going to disagree that she is mentally ill. She valued her pride above her common sense. She was too prideful to admit that she made a terrible mistake, and that turned into an obsession. But that doesn't equate to insanity, any more than the compulsion of people who buy lottery tickets in the face of 1 to 54,000,000 odds of winning The Big Prize. Sure, it's foolish, but it doesn't rank up there with schizophrenia.

On the other hand, I do agree that her husband should never have signed over his retirement. After the first $10,000 he should have thrown a conniption fit with his wife and demand the bank move all the money into an account only he had access to. After a few months, the scammers would have given up on her, and the reality of how big a fool she was would sink in. I think once her pride was broken, she wouldn't send them another dime. That would be the actual test of mental illness - if even today she continues to hope the Nigerians will still honor their promises. If someone gave her $1,000 today, would she send it to the Nigerians? If so, then yes, she's delusional. If not, then she's not mentally ill, she's merely foolish.

To paraphrase John Wayne (in a quote in the .sig of redhead-kitten: Life is hard. It's even harder if you're stupid.

Re:I'm amazed

[CountBrass]

Not so much stupid and greedy and a crook. These scams rely on the victim being both greedy and willing to undertake something that's at least borderline and often outright fraudulent.

I feel sorry for her husband and family but she's got what she deserved.

Re:I'm amazed

[pipingguy]

What if my IQ is 151 but because I'm dyslexic I *think* it's only 115? Ever thought of that, genuis?

Re:I'm amazed

[XDirtypunkX]

Bush did graduate from Harvard and Yale. Even with good connections, getting a C average at those sort of places probably requires some intelligence.

What Bush really lacks is initiative.

Re:I'm amazed

[MikeBabcock]

Statistically we live in a world where the vast majority of the population falls right around the 'average' mark, a few people are geniuses and a few are really stupid. There is a significant but not large percentage above average and below genius.

If I had to guess from the numbers I've seen, well over 50% of the population really is approximately of average intelligence.

Re:I'm amazed

[MikeBabcock]

Those of us with an IQ score only a few points below 140 felt stupid in special classes with those 150+ kids.

Re:I'm amazed

[InfiniteLoopCounter]

An IQ of 100 is the 50th percentile. You have exactly half the world stupider than you, and half the world smarter than you.

Correction: what it means is half the world scores worse than you on some random test, and half the world scores better.

Correction to the correction : half of the people in the world that bothers to take some random IQ test possibly score better than others that took a similar test (of possibly different degree of difficultly) in the past.

I doubt as much as half of the world's population has even taken an IQ test.

Re:I'm amazed

[aloshbennett]

Is she related to that singer?

Re:I'm amazed

[smegged]

Yes, I do think that in order to be religious a person has to be either of lower education (not necessarily of lower intelligence, lower education is enough) or that the person has to cheat to him/herself and create a duality within themselves and refuse their intelligence/education to be involved much when it concerns their religion.

Oh, I'm sorry, I was mistaken. This guy and this guy were either uneducated or unintelligent. Looks like poor education and intelligence stretches beyond the sciences and into popular culture too.

Re:I'm amazed

[seebs]

It's not greed. It's avoidance of cognitive dissonance. Once people have some involvement in something, they tend to filter data which would make it untrue. It's the same thing that happens with militantly religious (or anti-religious) people; they gradually develop filters that allow them to preemptively exclude any data which might make them les comfortable with their amazing qualities and superiority.

It's hard to get someone to bite for a few hundred dollars on a scam -- but once you have that first part, it's very easy to keep getting more, because admitting that they were scammed would make them feel awful.

Re:I'm amazed

[godless dave]

Obsessed is not the same as stupid. There is some interesting psychology in this kind of thing. That doesn't mean I have much sympathy for this victim, but it's not as simple as smart vs. stupid.

Re:I'm amazed

[k-macjapan]

But she was definitely stupid to ignore *everyone's* advice. I feel sorry for her husband.

While I agree with most of what you have to say on the subject, married to her. Someone doesn't turn ignorant/blind over night. He must have known before hand that she wasn't the brightest crayon in the box.

Re:I'm amazed

[osu-neko]

Eh? What have the taxpayers to do with this? Was a special levy announced? So far, the taxpayers haven't paid one red cent for this...

Of course, the argument is that eventually they will have to pay for it. This is based on the assumption that the bailout fails. If the bailout fails, we'll have bigger problems to worry about. If it succeeds, we'll make money on the deal, as we usually do when we structure these aid programs correctly (e.g. the Chrysler bailout, or a more appropriate if less recent example, FDR's mortgage bailout -- both examples where we made money in the long run).

After all the things the government spends money on with no hope of making any money in the process, it seems kinda odd to be upset about them investing money in such a way that it might not only help a lot of people, but actually make money in the long run. This would be a great idea for the government to do all the time if only it didn't distort the market. That's the only reason it's a bad idea in general -- right now, though, the market's already so bent to hell that that's the least of our concerns...

Re:I'm amazed

[wall0159]

...and while we're at it, we should sterilize all those who advocate sterilization.

Oh, damn...

Re:I'm amazed

[osu-neko]

The basic rule of any con is that "You can't cheat an honest person".

Unless you're the church, of course.

Naw, churches are rarely dealing with honest people. They specialize in fooling sinners into believing they have wave a magic wand and all their sins will go away...

"Don't worry about it! Your sins have already been paid for by someone else, two thousand years ago! Enjoy your free lunch!"

Re:I'm amazed

[k-macjapan]

I've already posted in this thread or I would mod you up.

I couldn't agree with you more. I think this is one of the most insightful posts I've ever read on this site. Especially the last line.

Cheers to you.

Re:I'm amazed

[osu-neko]

I've seen a lot of ads which say that Bush and Palin's IQs are over 110. I'm pretty sure those ads are full of shit.

No no, it's true, just worded trickily. The "and" there should be understood as implying an adding of the two together. IQ(Bush) + IQ(Palin) > 110.

Re:I'm amazed

[Kent Recal]

you'd need one with a negative IQ.

Have you ever been to a sports event?

Re:I'm amazed

[osu-neko]

LOL

Dude, look up "euphemism".

One of the reasons stupid people think they're smarter than they are is that they think hard tasks are easier than they are. Not understanding the actual complexities involved, they assume they've mastered some skill that they haven't. Take, for example, your magical ability to distinguish typos from misspellings where the author doesn't know the actual spelling, an ability you base on nothing but where keys on a keyboard are. Having grossly oversimplified the task by failing to grasp more than a fraction of the factors involved, you then conclude "it's not too hard", and further that you can do it. This is indeed a wonderful example of how stupid people can delude themselves into thinking they're much more intelligent than they actually are.

Stupid people aren't people who can't figure out the answer. On the contrary, they usually figure out the answer far too quickly and easily. The facts are plain as day to them, and the conclusion is obvious.

Now, intelligent people -- they find they can't really tell a typo from a misspelling based just on where keys are on the keyboard. They understand that that's insufficient information.

Note that in the case in question, the writer had obviously heard a euphemism...

Things are always obvious to idiots. They're rarely obvious to intelligent people. Intelligent people can see the multiplicity of possible explanations, whereas the idiot can only see one. You can usually fairly quickly spot an idiot by how often they think things are obvious. Again, they don't have trouble seeing the answer, rather, they leap to conclusions with incredible ease.

Re:I'm amazed

[Dr_Barnowl]

Religious people are not honest with themselves ; the cognitive dissonance you need to be religious is a form of lying to yourself.

(what's that you say... God knows all, is all-powerful, and benevolent, but yet somehow these children are still starving - well, heck, it must just be a test for the faithful!)

Re:I'm amazed

[the grace of R'hllor]

"You can't cheat an honest person"

In the words of Terry Pratchett, "The person who said that, wasn't one."

Re:I'm amazed

[HungryHobo]

So few people seem to be able to grasp the concept that you can generate wealth.
You buy a broken down old wreck and spend your time rebuilding it. When you're done you sell it.
The world is now richer by one car.

If you scam people you don't generate any wealth.

Re:I'm amazed

[Bloater]

Good counter example, but what are the chances of getting such a perfect example in the real world? That was constructed with the aim of landing 50% below the mean. Nature has no such purpose.

Re:I'm amazed

[rohan972]

Nevertheless, you asserted: "with the mean at 100 and at least one person over 200, for 50% to be below the mean you'd need one with a negative IQ."
That is incorrect. Surprisingly, you even had someone reply "Heh, you're right. That'll teach me ...". When it is in a thread with presumed intellectuals criticizing the intelligence of others .... well, perhaps a little more humility is in order.

Re:I'm amazed

[Aceticon]

One thing that life and the world has taught me is that:
- Intelligence (as measured by IQ) is not the same as smarts

Some of the most intelligent people I've met where also the most clueless, naive and social inept people I've ever met.

There's a reason why EQ correlates a lot better with success than IQ.

Re:I'm amazed

[electrofelix]

Technically he lost out on the possibility of 2 months worth of rental income.

Re:I'm amazed

[jamesswift]

Not the same. Taxpayers didn't have a choice.

Re:I'm amazed

[Triv]

It's a common mistake, though not a particularly pervasive or ignorant one, so I'm going to assume that it's one of those words you've heard said and have never seen written down. With that in mind, this is purely educational: It's spelled Hocked , not hawked.

Happy learning!

Re:I'm amazed

[Killjoy_NL]

heh nice :D

Re:I'm amazed

[vidarh]

Personally I think they used binary.

Re:I'm amazed

[JohhnyTHM]

That would mean the court ruling them impotent.

Re:I'm amazed

[Killjoy_NL]

Simple, buddhism isn't a religion :)

Re:I'm amazed

[Hugonz]

She was pure greed. The thing about helping those in need is just a pitiful lie (even if she herself believes it) Why did she not mortgage her house before to help those in need?

Re:I'm amazed

[roman_mir]

When it concerns Newton, he has created a duality. I mean the guy believed in alchemy too, doesn't make alchemy a science, same with the rest of them. They have to suspend their intelligence when it comes to religion.

Re:I'm amazed

[kungfugleek]

It wasn't like no one knew what she was doing.

Maybe she tricked them because she was so smart.

Re:I'm amazed

[VShael]

The basic rule of any con is that "You can't cheat an honest person".

That's what the con man tells you, playing up to your ego as well as convincing you that this isn't a con and there's NO WAY you could be cheated.

You're so honest. And wise. And did I mention good looking?

Re:I'm amazed

[LordKronos]

But she is old and probably grew old before internet and probably never traveled much ... So there is some reason why she believed everything she was told.

Yes, if only we could get rid of that internet we wouldn't have to worry about con men anymore.

Re:I'm amazed

[Nursie]

I had some problems with that. Not too much, but things like "making shit up" and telling lies that were semi-obvious and supposed to be a bit of a joke. I always had problems spotting them and ended up getting really pissed off when people did it, because I never understood why you would habitually lie about stuff, and why other people found it so hilarious.

meh.

Re:I'm amazed

[fgouget]

Unfortunately what this does not tell us is how much smarter high IQ people are.

For instance Usain Bolt being the current 100m world record holder, he would be the equivalent of someone with an IQ way above 150. Now 13 seconds is an average time for a 100m sprint. So does that mean that Usain Bolt can run 100m in 5 seconds? Of course not. His current record is 9.69 seconds. It's better than the average but not very much better in absolute terms than what most could achieve with a bit of training (Usain Bolt trained a lot so I feel it's a fair comparison).

Hopefully for us as a society, things are different for intelligence and high IQ people can really help us progress faster (assuming we, the masses, are not too dumb to recognize a good idea / discovery when we see one).

Re:I'm amazed

[TCaptain]

Working with the public made me lose faith in human nature and the notion that people are generally sane and smart.

It's funny how, since I've changed careers and no longer work with the public, the internet is working to take up that slack.

Re:I'm amazed

[v1]

I hope they have figured out what to do with us by now. My gradeschool knew they needed a TAG program but had no clue what to do with us. It was fun though, they did find some interesting challenges. Though one of their ideas was to try to teach us a foreign language. Looking back on it I think I could have come up with some good suggestions. Too bad they didn't just sit us down and ASK us what we wanted to do.

Re:I'm amazed

[knutkracker]

Although stupid people die more, so you tend to get slightly more bright people in older age groups, meaning that actually, slightly less than 50% of people are of below average intelligence.

Small comfort eh?

Re:I'm amazed

[eugene ts wong]

Actively engaging the mind's critical thinking capacities is hard. I find that true for myself. I can see it in my students too.

I teach English as a second language, and I can see a world of a difference between those who actually participate and try to learn the language, and all the others. "All the others" is composed of people who just don't get it, and those who aren't really interested.

I must admit, though, that a lot of it has to do with me. I'm sure that I could find better activities for them. I just wish that I could find those activities.

Re:I'm amazed

[eugene ts wong]

Somebody just gave the traditional phrase without any written judgements. It benefited me, as a reader. You seem to be judging that person's intent without knowing anything about him. I just assumed that he was making a correction for the writing, but you assumed the worst.

Re:I'm amazed

[mrraven]

@Dan541

"We need a National Dipshit Register. So these people can be flagged."

Anyone who would say such a thing ought to be the first person on said register.

Meanwhile we ought to be doing our best to educate older, trusting, naive people that there are organized scammers looking to cheat them out of their life savings. Blaming the victim is the A #1 quality of "dipshits" IMO.

Don't blame yourself though in America cruel is the new cool, sigh.

Re:I'm amazed

[Brad1138]

An IQ of 100 is the 50th percentile.

That should be correct but have you tried any of those online IQ test? It isn't hard to score 130+. Maybe me and my wife are that smart but I think the average person, of the kind that I know, work with, frequent /. etc probably would score 120-140 or more. I guess that offsets the "hillbilly/trailer trash" out there that I don't see/associate with (there must be more of them with IQs of 60-80 than I thought). Or it could just be that the online IQ tests aren't very accurate.

Re:I'm amazed

[bevoblake]

Good post, but I partially disagree on the financiers section. I think there were a few financiers who bought CDOs "with one eye closed" and a vast majority who didn't understand the situation. It took an intervention at Goldman at the C-level to stop the practice; the risk managers in most other companies couldn't get that kind of attention. So, I think you've got to mix a healthy amount of stupidity and/or ignorance in with the greed bouillabaisse.

Re:I'm amazed

[T.E.D.]

We need a National Dipshit Register. So these people can be flagged.

Those are quite easy to generate. Just scrape all the email addresses out of the next few virus/gang scare/Obama hoax/otherwise Snopes-worthy emails that people forward to you.

Heck, I saved all the emails I got from victims of the ILOVEYOU virus a few years ago, just in case I ever found myself in need of a nice list of rubes' email addresses.

Re:I'm amazed

[jridley]

OTOH, some of the religious aid agencies are the most efficient ways to send your money to help. The church I go to has an aid branch that you can earmark funds to - the administrative and transportation costs of the agency is 100% paid for out of the church's budget, so 100% (every PENNY) earmarked for that agency goes to buy actual aid in disasters, famine relief, and uplift programs (like installing wells in places where otherwise they have to walk miles for water). The agency does not to evangelism except by example.

I realize that there are missions like what you mention, but I'm just making sure people don't use too wide of a brush here.

Re:I'm amazed

[ultranova]

Why is she actively disturbing evolution?

She isn't. It would be impossible for her to do so. Conveying information from one human to another is part of human species survival strategy, and arguably the one that has let us conquer the world.

I think it's a good thing to take resources from the stupid, and give it to the smart. And that's what's happening. Even if you do not like it. :)

You are wrong, it is a bad thing. Moral considerations aside, scams force people to be on guard against them, which not only consumes mental resources which could be used in a more productive fashion, but also makes it harder for legitimate businesses to get funding - after all, the possibility that they're a scam weights against giving them money. This is especially true for startups. This, in turn, makes us all poorer than we could be.

You are, however, right in that it's happening, even if I don't like it. That rises the question: how to stop it ?

Re:I'm amazed

[aaron alderman]

Don't worry. We will bail out the scammers.

Re:I'm amazed

[rHBa]

What about all the people who scored the same as you?

Re:I'm amazed

[Free the Cowards]

When your obsession causes you to do very stupid things then what makes it not stupid? There are a lot of ways to be stupid, and "IQ of 75 on a standardized test" is only one of them.

Re:I'm amazed

[ultranova]

There is no way that I will ever believe that 75% of the population is dumber than Bush or Palin. Those two people are practically the definition of below average intelligence.

Bush managed to get himself elected to be the most powerful human on Earth - twice. How does your theory explain that ?

Palin would get seriously spanked on "Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader?".

And yet she seems to have quite a nice career and plenty of power too. Perhaps it is you who is fooled here ?

Re:I'm amazed

[Bloater]

I've looked at you example again and there are not enough samples to determine that it is a skewed normal curve so we can't know whether it is actually a counter example.

I suspect it isn't but I have ladies to meet and dance argentine tango with in a few hours so I'm not going to spend the time forming a pedantic proof or disproof of any of this.

Hah! Who's the smart one now?

Re:I'm amazed

[plague3106]

No, it's not sad. Act gready and stupid, you get what you deserve.

Re:I'm amazed

[plague3106]

I would guess that the work can be turned around and sent before the check comes back as fraudlent.

Re:I'm amazed

[ultranova]

And for God's sake, read Personal Finance for Dummies. If you haven't read it, stop trying to convince yourself you already know how money works. The book costs 15 bucks...just freaking READ IT!

I have to admit, that was a very good setup. Did you write the book, or do you simply get paid to astroturf it ?

Re:I'm amazed

[fuckinshitmotherfuck]

The most overlooked group of people on forums like this are non internet users. About 20% of Ameericans are without the internet (60 Million), and I would guess that a significant # of internet users are internet illiterate (like they use IE, download malware, just look at the end users at your office). If from earlier statements regarding intelligence, about 4% of people are dumb (IQ below 80), there are still millions of potential marks are out there, uninformed to these types of scams. Really, prior to this news article, when is the last time you saw this on the TV news, in your local paper, or on a magazine stand? Sure us ./ readers all know about these scams because we have gotten numorus emails with similar offers. We ask questions and have a high level of cynicism. I would guess that out of the say 1% of people who follow up on these types of scams, all but about 1% are stopped by people in the know (family members, banks). The the numbers on scams have to equate probability X reward. A 400,000$ reward for 1,000,000 emails, is a payoff of .40$ an email. Not a bad days work, and who knows how many others have fallen victim on a similar or smaller level, and are embarrased to admit they are idiots.

Re:I'm amazed

[fataugie]

Except things clear much faster than a few weeks.
It will show up as bad within a few days.

Re:I'm amazed

[jvkjvk]

To your point about stereotyping - one of the difficulties with fighting the stereotyping of religions is that the 'major' faiths (christianity, judaism, islam - lower case intentional) are dogma-based

This is ironic, i think. Here you are agreeing that there is a problem stereotyping religions, and then go ahead and merrily do so. Oh wait, that was your entire point, that it's ok to stereotype religious people. I forgot.

Anyway, your blanket statement is provably false. Thanks for playing. IRL there are plenty of Christian sects that promote the only true connection to god is the personal. There are Christian sects that have no problem with homosexuals.

I share a neighborhood with a bunch of ...

Your personal anecdotes have little to do with your statement. The only truth one might make from them is that there are certain sects of Christianity that are dogma-based, or intolerant.

The problem is, if you look past the stereotypes and the denial of reason - and I'd be willing to look past those to some degree, because as you point out, we don't have all the answers on the 'science' side of the house either - you end up with intolerance and vitriol.

I'm not quite sure I understand what you're saying here. What I can make out is that if you look beyond the stereotyping and denial of reason that all Christians have you end up with intolerance and vitriol.

Sorry if that is an incorrect but I must disagree with my understanding of what you said. This appears to be just a stereotype YOU are placing on them with no factual basis (actually since we have contrary examples, it's just an example of mental illness).

Stereotypes can be helpful too - I was raised catholic. By associating priests with pedophilia (truly a stereotype, as pedophile priests are a tiny minority of the priesthood) I desensitized myself to the catholic symbols and mechanisms of oppression. Now, instead of seeing a 'father' I see a 'creepy pervert'. Such stereotyping helped flush the 'papal poison' from my memetic scheme.

So instead of one false viewpoint of the world you traded it for another *different* false viewpoint of the world. Perhaps you call this progress but I would not. You may think you have reprogrammed yourself but by the contents of this post it seems you have merely traded one dogma for another. The shape and size of your container for these philosophies doesn't seem to have changed merely the slant of the contents. In other words, it appears you have done a drop in replacement of Catholicism that in effect merely changes the "sign" of your outputs, not the quality.

Now, why again should we stop stereotyping religions and embrace them? I'll consider it when they stop stereotyping and start embracing everyone who does not believe as they do. When they stop mudslinging and worse, trying to deny the full, legitimate humanity of others based on *their* dogma, I'll grant them some respect. Until that time, given the chance, I will sling mud and take every shot, cheap or fair, that I can - I am still playing more fairly than they do.

Perhaps because YOU are trying to stand on a logical and ethical platform as an atheist and you totally undermine your own ethics and morality by engaging in something you supposedly decry. And you have no out, no excuse. You simply do it (even though you think it's wrong) because "the other guy does it!" How's that?

Re:I'm amazed

[Free the Cowards]

Snopes disagrees with you, at least in the case of a cashier's check. The key point is that funds will be made available to you, and therefore the check appears to clear, before the money is actually guaranteed to be yours.

Re:I'm amazed

[penguin_dance]

Well addiction CAN be a disease or a sign of it. I worked several years for a non-profit drug rehabilitation so I've seen how addition can affect a person--not the physical addition...the mental one, which is a lot harder to fix. The reason some people can put in a couple of dollars in the slots and then walk away and some stand there until they're out of money, is beyond just greed. It's an obsession. Now some obsessions can be harmless. Obsessive compulsives may have to do little rituals before leaving a house. But if they become so bad that it starts to ruin their life, then yes, they need some help. I think the gamblers in your example are like alcoholics. Like alcohol, something stimulates the pleasure center in their brains when the gamble. I don't know if it's the thrill or suspense that the next dollar may be the big winner. But they can't stop once they start and usually need help to stay in recovery.

Most people get burned once in these scams and may be ashamed of getting taken, but don't continue to throw money down a black hole. This woman kept sending money, despite not getting the return as promised and despite everyone in her family and the bank telling her she was being scammed. This is, in essence just like someone trying to win back their losing at the slot machine until they use up the family's savings. That tells me that while she may be functional, she's clearly not well. You don't have to be schizophrenic or ready for a strait-jacket to have a mental disorder.

Had I been a family member I would have done everything possible to keep money out of this woman's hands and tried to get her some help.

Re:I'm amazed

[HappyEngineer]

You are confusing power with intelligence. Being able to schmooze well is not the same thing as having great knowledge and abilities. Having good connections has nothing to do with intelligence.

You sound like a highschooler who thinks social standing is the most important criteria for human worth.

Re:I'm amazed

[penguin_dance]

I'm going to disagree that she is mentally ill. She valued her pride above her common sense. She was too prideful to admit that she made a terrible mistake, and that turned into an obsession. But that doesn't equate to insanity, any more than the compulsion of people who buy lottery tickets in the face of 1 to 54,000,000 odds of winning The Big Prize. Sure, it's foolish, but it doesn't rank up there with schizophrenia.

You don't have to be schizophrenic to be mentally ill. Depression, for example, is a mental illness. There are plenty of people living (and driving!) among us that have some form of mental disorder. So you can be mentally ill and still be "functional." This case, I think, went beyond greed or just pride. She was obsessed. As I said to the other person, it was like she couldn't leave the gambling table until she either won her losses back or ran out of money. Sure there's nothing wrong with playing a slot machine or buying a lotto ticket, but if you're spending ALL your money on the slot machine or lotto tickets, that's another thing altogether.

There were several people who could have stopped her, but didn't. I just wondered why no one, especially the husband (although maybe he's incapacitated and she handles the day-to-day affairs) didn't do as you said and lock the money away from her. They said he was deaf (which doesn't mean he's incapacitated)...but maybe he is isolated and didn't know that she was running through the money or what she was spending it on.
 

Re:I'm amazed

[netsavior]

The basic rule of any con is that "You can't cheat an honest person".
Unless you're the church, of course.

Those who lie to themselves are the least honest among us. The "faithful" are very easy to scam, because they pathologically suspend disbelief, it is automatic and well practiced, they do not need convincing, they need a reason to believe.

The cynic in me says that if you can be lead to believe that a man spoke the universe into existence, faked dinosaurs, made people - then bitch slapped them for eating a magical apple, then flooded the world killing all but a handful of white people, then etched 10 laws on some rocks, then decided to be born/send his son to be murdered, then fell silent for 2000 years; you could probably believe that some dude in Nigeria needs some help laundering money.

Re:I'm amazed

[ultranova]

You are confusing power with intelligence.

No, I'm acknowledging the ability to persuade people to give you power as indicative of intelligence. Is there any particular reason I shouldn't ?

Being able to schmooze well is not the same thing as having great knowledge and abilities.

Actually yes, it is, specifically the ability to schmooze well. Which, apparently, can compensate quite well for the lack of other abilities, as far as personal gain is concerned.

Having good connections has nothing to do with intelligence.

Of course it does. Creating, maintaining and using social connections for your advantage is presumably the very thing human intelligence evolved for.

You sound like a highschooler who thinks social standing is the most important criteria for human worth.

Perhaps you should analyze that statement a bit closer. Are you not essentially using a threat of a perceived loss of social status as an argument there ? A bit of a cognitive dissonance between your words and actions, there :).

And while it might not indicate human worth, social standing does indeed hold tremendous importance to humans living in human society. Just see your own note about connections and how they can be used for great gain above.

Re:I'm amazed

[pablodiazgutierrez]

I saw kudos to those people, then. By the way, how does that church get the money to run? Just curious. I'm Spanish and there the Catholic church gets lots of tax money.

Re:I'm amazed

[HappyEngineer]

Are you not essentially using a threat of a perceived loss of social status as an argument there ? A bit of a cognitive dissonance between your words and actions, there

I can't figure out if you are a troll or if you honestly believe what you are saying. I'll assume you honestly believe what you are saying for now.

That's an interesting observation, but my analogy was not part of my argument. It was merely a final summary of my impression of your argument.

Here's another one. I seem to recall a kid's cartoon where they would say "knowledge is power". You seem to have believe it is the other way around.

Power can be gained in many ways. It can be gained because it was given to you by your parents (either via money or by existing political connections).

Power can be gained by personal connections which were themselves gained merely because their parents were able to put them into a school where they met the right sort of people.

Power can be gained through deceit.

Of course, power can also be gained by legitimately pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. A person with power could very well be a very intelligent person.

Let me make an example from my own experience. Managers have power. Sometimes those managers are very intelligent. Sometimes they have good people skills. Sometimes they have both. The good managers have both. The bad managers have only one or neither of those things.

I have known some very stupid managers who nevertheless had good people skills. My original assertion was that Palin and Bush are these sorts of people. They have good people skills, but they are dumb as rocks.

You have not attempted to prove that either one of them is intelligent. You are just trying to convince me that they obviously must be intelligent because they have power. I'm afraid that I simply do not agree.

Re:I'm amazed

[Gerv]

Depends what you are saying. "Hocked" means pawned, although you would normally say "put X in hock". "Hawked", at least in UK English, means "sold".

Gerv

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

If you have an IQ of 100. Not if you test an IQ of 100.

Just because we don't know how to accurately test it 100%, doesn't mean the quantity doesn't exist.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

Every IQ test I've ever seen has had some common sense and memory type tests in it as well, which should somewhat take care of the 'suckered in' part.
Admittedly, it's a much harder thing to test for, because it's so abstract, but there's at least an attempt to get some kind of measure of this in IQ tests I've seen.

And 153 is pretty damned good. My range has been 140-145 in a number of tests, so I think it's probably pretty accurate.

But I agree with you, that motivation has nothing whatsoever to do with intelligence.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

Yeah, but what if 98% of the people you meet say that the world is full of morons?

Then they're right, they just have no idea why. :-/

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

Yup. I was in a similar program when I was in public school, and continuing into high school. Took the smartest kids from all the schools in my county, and put them all in a classroom together.

We were learning ridiculously advanced things in public school, but they still managed to make it fun, not just purely academic.

I remember a few days we were learning bridge architecture, and designing our own to see who could make the strongest one. Of course, it was toothpicks and popsicle sticks rather than beams and girders, but it was a blast. Then we piled bricks on them to see who's collapsed with the most weight. I could stand on mine, although I was an admittedly skinny bastard. Still am.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

Awfully cocky considering you screwed up the quote tags. :)

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

Exactly my point. Everything's relative, so you've got to think from the point of view of the person who's saying the moron/genius comment.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

I've done dead tree and online IQ tests, and every one I've taken has come out within a 6 point range.

Just read some stuff on bash.org, and you'll see a few examples of very stupid people.

Here's a good one:

http://www.bash.org/?420855

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

This is assuming that nobody is exactly as intelligent as anybody else, and 99.999999 rounds to 100, and 100.000001 also rounds to 100.

Since no two brains are identical, this is probably a reasonable assumption to make.

If you are exactly 100.0000000000...then you're at the 50th percentile.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

And while it might not indicate human worth, social standing does indeed hold tremendous importance to humans living in human society.

Of course it does. That's because humans living in human society are 98% morons. :)

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

Ok, I get it.

Because you don't understand it, there can't possibly be any truth to it.

This, of course, implies that you know everything there is to be known, which is the pinnacle of arrogance.

Just as you claim there isn't any proof that god/God exists, there can also be no proof that God doesn't exist.

I love how some atheists will argue logic and science 'til they're blue in the face, but as soon as it comes to whether God exists, they'll throw their own logic out the window, claiming that there is no God.

Anybody with any sense at all knows that you can't prove the non-existence of something, so even if you were to prove evolution and the big bang theory, and all the rest of it beyond a shadow of a doubt (which we're a long way from, by the way) you still cannot use any of that to prove that God doesn't exist.

So don't give me this "suspending their intelligence" crap. Maybe they knew something you didn't. Let's leave it at that.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

And if a church/cult/religious organization tries to get you to donate first thing, before you've even set foot in the door, I'd agree with you. They're just after the money.

I wouldn't think of going to a church like that, either.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

You simply do it (even though you think it's wrong) because "the other guy does it!" How's that?

Sounds like partisan politics.....

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

Why don't you say the same thing about Muslims and Buddhists? Afraid they might blow you up or sit on you?

Ah, I believe this is called "fatwa envy", gotta love it.

No, that was called sarcasm, and you completely missed it. That, and the fact that he took a cheap shot at Christians, which by his opinion, really should have been directed at religion in general.

My point is that it's somehow socially acceptable to slam Christians, but not really any other religion.

Re:I'm amazed

[cbiltcliffe]

You completely missed the point.

It wasn't "Have sex every day this week because I think you should and it's your duty."
It was more like "Have sex every day this week as a way to build intimacy between the two of you, and to enjoy each other."

No, I didn't explain it fully, because I figured the fact that a pastor was encouraging sex at all would be shocking enough to most people. Apparently I should have gone further.

BTW, there's a great book I'm reading regarding marriage and sex called "Sheet Music"

It's written from a Christian perspective, but there's a lot of really good advice for couples, even non-religious ones.

There's an entire chapter about the giving/withholding of sex thing, and how it's deadly to relationships.
There's another for guys about how they do the whole wining and dining thing when they're dating, then when they're married, coming to bed smelling like motor oil, and expecting their wife to want to get frisky.

It's a good read.

Re:I'm amazed

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Awfully cocky considering you screwed up the quote tags. :)

Hey, I claimed to be smart, not a careful typist. Smart enough to realize it wouldn't be funny to stick an intentional typo in the previous sentence at least. :)

Re:I'm amazed

[roman_mir]

Because you don't understand it, there can't possibly be any truth to it.

- you use that word 'truth', and I don't think you understand what it means. To a religious person truth is based on his faith. To a non-religious person there is no such absolute concept. To me 'truth' is just a word that sometimes may imply a basic fact (like for example it is a basic fact that the mass of proton is approximated at 1.67262158 × 10-27 kilograms) and sometimes is a word that describes a situation with relation to circumstances. It is true that many Americans believed that Saddam Hussein was somehow responsible for 9/11 because Bush told them it was so. Of-course they were all wrong and Bush simply wanted to get his way in Iraq, but that is a different 'truth'.

Truth is a meaningless word, only facts are meaningful. Your truth is based on faith and as such it is not my truth.

This, of course, implies that you know everything there is to be known, which is the pinnacle of arrogance.

- This of-cours implies no such thing. Your second statement does not logically follow from your first statement.

Just as you claim there isn't any proof that god/God exists, there can also be no proof that God doesn't exist.

- I am not required to prove that god does not exist because I am not making any outlandish statements. You on the other hand believe that a god exists, but you can't prove it to anyone, you can only believe it, that's why it's faith and not at all anything that can be actually studied in any way except as a lesson in human psychology.

I love how some atheists will argue logic and science 'til they're blue in the face, but as soon as it comes to whether God exists, they'll throw their own logic out the window, claiming that there is no God.

- I don't claim any such thing. I claim that no one has any proof of existence of god and thus the claim that god exists is not based in reality. You can have your faith but that means that by definition you cannot make your faith into anything other than that. You cannot turn your faith into knowledge because scientific principles and methods cannot be applied to turn irrational believes into testable knowledge.

Anybody with any sense at all knows that you can't prove the non-existence of something, so even if you were to prove evolution and the big bang theory, and all the rest of it beyond a shadow of a doubt (which we're a long way from, by the way) you still cannot use any of that to prove that God doesn't exist.

- You are assuming that I am trying to do so but I am not. Nothing can prove existence of god short of god himself coming over.

So don't give me this "suspending their intelligence" crap. Maybe they knew something you didn't. Let's leave it at that.

- Lets put it this way: Newton organized our basic knowledge of mechanics and optics (among other things), he was the kind of guy who wanted to leave a legacy. He also wrote many scripts on the subject of religion and god, he was into some pretty weirs shit though, including occult studies of the philosopher's stone, end of the world by 2060, astrology, chronology and such. He left the scripts for everyone to see, had he known something that was actually groundbreaking in terms of faith and god it would have been known.

However it is a very simple fact that having faith does not require having any extraordinary intelligence at all. Faith is easy to have, it is actual understanding of facts that is difficult. Otherwise intelligent people have their faith, which also means that intelligence is not an obstacle at all for having faith. However it is understood by the intelligent that religious faith by definition cannot become knowledge. Well, at least not in this life ( and I don't believe it reincarnation either ;)

Re:I'm amazed

[fataugie]

No offense, but I don't give a shit what snopes says. As a former teller, I know how fast things clear and even back when that was my job title, if it was from an unknown bank (think out of town) it was treated as suspicous and subject to a 10 day hold before the funds were available (save the first $100 as per the law). The check typically cleared or bounced within 3 to 5 days unless it was drawn on the US Treasury...they took forever. That was circa '90's. Things have sped up quite a bit in the past two years to where checks clear almost overnight. Well within the 3-5 days as before.

Next time you're in the bank, chat them up and ask how fast things clear these days.

Disclaimer: This applies to US banks. If you're talking about Somali banks or something...YMMV.

Re:I'm amazed

[Schadrach]

There were four of us, and it covered something like 3 counties. Met weekly, two of us were from the same school, same grade. It was intended as a supplemental thing, and we went into all kinds of interesting tangents.

Re:I'm amazed

[Faylone]

Sometimes it's like getting hit in the face with a 2x4. Sometimes it's like getting hit in the GROIN. Unfortunately, the worse it hurts, the more it's needed

Bill Engvall comes to mind

[smooth wombat]

Here's your sign: L

Re:Bill Engvall comes to mind

[chris.evans]

She is just greedy not needy.

Re:Bill Engvall comes to mind

[XMode]

So glad I read the comments first. I was just about to post the very same thing! The guy was on to something you know..

She had it coming

[powerslave12r]

What can I say? She deserved it? I mean who send $400k to Nigeria?

Re:She had it coming

[sesshomaru]

It's sounds like the money she sent wasn't actually hers.

Re:She had it coming

[negRo_slim]

I can think of a few, who send monies to Nigeria.

Re:She had it coming

[vishbar]

Microsoft.

Re:She had it coming

[Drakin020]

[blockquote][i]Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account[/blockquote][/i] But her husband didn't deserve it.

Re:She had it coming

[Lobster Quadrille]

That is so incredibly ironic...

Re:She had it coming

[Lobster Quadrille]

If he gave her access to her account, he sure did.

Re:She had it coming

[Drakin020]

Dude they were married. I'd give my wife access as well, but I trust she wouldn't make a bad choice.

Re:She had it coming

[Seth Kriticos]

You owe me a keyboard. Just spilled coffee all over mine ;)

Re:She had it coming

[mgcarley]

Yeah, but not through Western Union.

Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[dkleinsc]

"It is immoral to allow a sucker to keep their money."

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[E 99]

"It is immoral to allow a sucker to keep their money."

That's the morality of a thief anyway. In these Nigerian operations they keep repeating such things to one another.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[sfjoe]

The strange thing here is not that a fool and her money are soon parted but rather that the fool ever managed to get together with her money in the first place.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[fm6]

Aha, you're one of those smug assholes who think he's immune to any kind of con. Could I get your email? I have a friend with a business opportunity I'm sure you'll be interested in.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[Eivind]

"immune to any kind" would be stretching it. But yes, there are huge differences between people in how easy it is to con them.

It's not even that hard to increase your con-resistance by orders of magnitude. "If something is too good to be true, it likely is" is sufficient in most cases.

Then again, a working bullshit-detector is useful for many more purposes than just avoiding being conned.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[Kjella]

The strange thing here is not that a fool and her money are soon parted but rather that the fool ever managed to get together with her money in the first place.

Not really. By far the most stupid people with money I've seen is by inheritance - it doesn't matter how smart your parents were. Then there's marrying rich - an IQ match isn't really required. Then there's borrowing yourself into debt and wasting it, which is always available if you got property to be mortgaged or even just racking up credit card debt. And then there's freak accidents like winning the lottery and whatever. And even very smart people lose a lot of money on things like the stock market, just entering and exiting at the right time by luck will bring money to some. In short, there's many way for a fool and her money to meet. I think most of us could screw ourselves over real good if we turned off the sanity filters, not because we're rich but because we always could.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[MindStalker]

Yep, I think we've fully realized this with the current economic situation. Take advantage of the stupid for too long and for too much, it will eventually crumble sectors of the economy. The economy has to have a decent % of stupid people spending money frequently to remain solvent. They spend it too fast and get in debt and stop spending it, the whole game stops.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[fm6]

Right, all you need is some lame aphorisms to armor yourself from a con. If that were true, con artists would have disappeared long ago.

It's really depressing to listen to folks like you sneer at other people's mistakes, assuming that you'd never be that stupid. The fact that you feel so smugly superior means you probably would be so stupid.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[Eivind]

Nah, it's not all you need, you also need a functioning brain.

Seriously, are you suggesting that all people are equally suspectible to being conned, or do you admit that there are HUGE individual differences in likeliness ?

And if there is a difference, is it not because some people have more sense than others ?

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[fm6]

No, I'm not saying that there are no differences. I'm saying that you're much too smug about where on the spectrum you lie. The fact that you reduce the whole thing to "need a functioning brain" tells me you're not as smart as you think you are. Really smart people know what they don't know.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[Eivind]

*shrug* You're overstating it. This particular example isn't someone falling for a non-obvious con. It is someone persistently sending huge amounts of money to someone doing a VERY well-known type of con, despite being warned. It doesn't take a genius to avoid doing that.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[fm6]

It is someone persistently sending huge amounts of money to someone doing a VERY well-known type of con, despite being warned. It doesn't take a genius to avoid doing that.

No it doesn't. What it does take is for the mark to say to themselves, "Shit! I've done something really stupid! I've given this guy thousands of bucks, and I'll never see any of it again!"

Why didn't she? Because people hate admitting to themselves that they can be idiots. You certainly do, or we wouldn't be having this conversation. I'm no different. And what's the alternative to admitting that you've fucked up? Denial.

People in denial do amazingly stupid things. Doesn't mean they have no brains. Quite the contrary: it takes a lot of creativity and intelligence to work up really good denial. You see it every day here on Slashdot. Somebody's throws out an opinion that's ignorant or illogical, and people call them on it. Rather than admit to "being stupid" they come up with arguments that get sillier and more convoluted with every iteration. And it's a vicious cycle: the more people tell you you're being an asshole, the more determined you are to prove them wrong.

The problem here is not stupidity, it's cowardice. It takes courage to admit a mistake. Do you think you'll never be a coward? Then you really are stupid.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[Eivind]

Dunno. I actually am an idiot on a regular basis and it never much bothered me to admit it. I think -that- may be a cultural thing though, some cultures have a strong focus on "success", being a "winner" and so there is a high personal cost to admitting a fuck-up. You're probably right that such ideas make it harder to back down once you've made the first mistake. Still, even so, there's a limit to how many times you normally can say: "Give me money ONE more time and I'll make you rich!" and have that person do it.

I could see a normal person doing it 2 times, but sending money 23 times, each time expecting that it's the last ? Sorry, but that really -is- dumb. Foor me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me -23- times, I'm a dumb fuck.

I don't think I'll never be a coward.

But I do think that if I ever make an expensive mistake, I won't follow-up by doing the same mistake again 22 more time, each time stupider than the previous.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[fm6]

Dunno. I actually am an idiot on a regular basis and it never much bothered me to admit it.

Never? That makes you a unique human being.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[Eivind]

I was talking in general, and I did add the qualifier "much". I'm sure it's happened, that wasn't my point. My point was that some people are hugely bothered by admitting mistakes, others are not so.

It was a mistake right there, to say "never", when more correct would've been "seldom". I'm sorry.

Re:Canada Bill Jones would be proud

[fm6]

"Seldom" is more honest then "never". But it would be even more honest to admit that you're not objective about your own shortcomings.

Awful

[JCSoRocks]

This woman is the reason these kinds of scams exist. She should be exiled.

Re:Awful

[JCSoRocks]

I missed the part where that was funny. I miss the days where, in addition to being retarded, AC's were funny.

Re:Awful

[Anonymous Coward]

This woman is the reason these kinds of scams exist. She should be exiled.

I missed the part where that was funny. I miss the days where, in addition to being retarded, AC's were funny.

Dear Slashdot Reader,

My wife and family was recently was exiled from the USA for monetary reasons.

I was forced to flee before we could remove our holdings from their safe location.

I have since been in contact with a friend who can help withdraw our recent government bailout of $5,000,000,000, however in order to expedite this, I need to raise $400,000 to cover legal, and transfer fees.

I am looking for a trustworthy individual to help, and am willing to part with 20% of the money, once its been transferred.

If you can help, please contact me at MrJaneLLaSPeaRs@gmail.com

Re:Awful

[spintriae]

This is why I don't deal with those Nigerian scammers. I deal directly with the Prince of Nigeria himself. We're so close that I"m sending him money to unfreeze his dead aunt's $1 billion fortune, of which I'm going to receieve half.

Re:Awful

[smallfries]

Dude, 50% is a terrible return on a Nigerian scam. You should shop around some.

Re:Awful

[BlackSabbath]

Not only did you put a smile on my face, but you have totally captured the thought process of the rubes that fall for these scams.

Re:Awful

[JCSoRocks]

I had to pick my top three. Slashdot sigs have a really brief length limit. Unfortunately that's probably a good thing. Most bulletin boards are 50% signature garbage.

Re:Awful

[hotdiggitydawg]

She should be exiled.

Or elected.

Re:Awful

[Just Some Guy]

Look closer: he wrote "Zimbabwe". That billion plus 999 more just like it will get you a lollipop.

Re:Awful

[pipingguy]

Also, make sure you're getting US dollars, not Nigerian dollars.

Re:Awful

[mpe]

This woman is the reason these kinds of scams exist. She should be exiled.

But who'd want her in their country?

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone admit to being a retard?

Re:Why?

[bubulubugoth]

Sell her story to movie makers and cash in more than 400k?

Re:Why?

[rugatero]

I am interested in filming her life story. I'll gladly pay $1m dollars for the rights. First she needs to send a $100,000 clearing fee and I'll deal with it from there.

Re:Why?

[91degrees]

Perhaps because she's realised she's been stupid and wants to make a clean break. She's confronting her failure and admitting to them.

Those who hide their mistakes and are ashamed of them don't learn from them. Those who admit to their mistakes do.

Re:Why?

[IcyHando'Death]

I've got mod points, but where's the "-1 - Insensitive Clod" option?

Re:Why?

[flanders123]

In your film, at what point will you morph her head into that of a donkey a la Looney Toons when Elmer Fudd gets duped by that wascally wabbit?

Technology?

[randyest]

This is a Technology story? Why? Because the scam happened via email? Pretty tenuous link there. Also a pretty weak story. I guess it's amusing that she was unashamed enough to admit her stupidity and greed, but other than that I'm not sure why I should care. She and the scammer both should face charges, but I'm not sure how this is "news for nerds" or "stuff that matters."

Re:Technology?

[cowscows]

Because we've all personally seen tons of those emails, and 99.9999% of us were smart enough to laugh them off or just plain ignore them. And then on the other hand, this woman was dumb enough to give away a ridiculous amount of money. People doing stupid things is amusing. It sucks that she's wiped out her husband's retirement account, but that doesn't make it any less funny.

Re:Technology?

[exp(pi*sqrt(163))]

Of course it's a technology story. It's people like this that have driven technologies like Bayesian filtering of email.

Re:Technology?

[Culture20]

This is an "idle" story. The ambulance story is a technology story. Clearly the databases are crossed.

Husband's retirement account

[77Punker]

...more like former husband

Re:Husband's retirement account

[internerdj]

Who would have guessed Federline would even have a retirement account? But we all knew if anyone could fall for this it would be her... Oh wait, different Spears.

Wrong crowd

[pcgamez]

"For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted."

Slashdot is not exactly going to be a sympathetic crowd here. What we have is an intelligent person who ignored every single bit of advice from a multitude of sources in favor of outright greed. So now she wants to warn people, but is it really going to do any good? She clearly would have ignored the advice she is now giving.

Re:Wrong crowd

[negRo_slim]

She clearly would have ignored the advice she is now giving.

Yes but at that time she would have had money and a goal to work towards. Now that she lost everything all she can shoot for is a little attention.

Re:Wrong crowd

[linumax]

1. Send husband's hard-earned money to your own foreign account
2. Ignore warnings and claim you're helping a Nigerian prince
3. Play victim and make it public
4. ...
5. Profit!

Re:Wrong crowd

[rbanffy]

She needs to sell a book on her story in order to pay for the debts she already made.

Also, she needs the money to invest in another deal she learned about in an e-mail.

Re:Wrong crowd

[Jason Levine]

I've heard that, once you get into a scam like this and you begin to get evidence that it is a scam, you basically have two mental options:

1. Admit that it is a scam, you are an idiot, and you are out tons of money.

2. Ignore the "It's a Scam!" evidence and send more money their way because this last payment is the one that'll make you rich.

Now you and I can easily say that it's better to do #1 and walk away, but they've mentally and financially invested themselves in this scam. It is easier in the short term to simply believe that you will be rich if you just cut one last check than to face the cold, hard reality of the situation. She obviously got herself in deep and then mentally ignored all evidence that it wasn't a scam to avoid facing the pain of being scammed. All that did, however, was postpone (and increase) the pain.

Re:Wrong crowd

[killermookie]

What we have is an intelligent person who ignored every single bit of advice from a multitude of sources in favor of outright greed.

Your use of the word 'intelligent' is debatable.

Re:Wrong crowd

[elrous0]

Greed and hope are incredibly powerful human motivators. Why do you think millions of suckers throw away money on lottery tickets every day?

Re:Wrong crowd

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Lottery is tax on stupidity. Perhaps the government should use lottery money to increase scientists and professors' salaries, to offset the mistreatment that geeks suffer in childhood?

Re:Wrong crowd

[ArsonSmith]

Vegas works this same way.

Re:Wrong crowd

[Simulant]

IANAL but, let's assume for a moment that the the Nigerian offer was legit. Isn't it illegal to essentially launder money for these people? Aren't the 'victims' attempting to break the law? That would make them gullible, greedy, and criminal. No sympathy here.

Re:Wrong crowd

[MacDork]

Slashdot is not exactly going to be a sympathetic crowd here.

1. Send husband's hard-earned money to your own foreign account
2. Ignore warnings and claim you're helping a Nigerian prince
3. Play victim and make it public
4. ...
5. Profit!

4. Find out it was really Microsoft who scammed you.

I _knew_ there was some way we could win /. sympathy here! ;)

Re:Wrong crowd

[sesshomaru]

Well, if George W. Bush and the Director of the FBI are telling you it's not illegal, then... never mind.

Re:Wrong crowd

[st0rmshad0w]

I like this one better:

1. Send husband's hard-earned money to his own foreign account while he scams you
2. Ignore warnings and claim you're helping a Nigerian prince
3. Play victim and make it public, sell book/movie rights
4. Divorce husband and move away
5. Turn up dead somewhere while hubby collects on MASSIVE insurance policy
6. Profit!

Re:Wrong crowd

[dubl-u]

Personal stories are very powerful to a lot of people. Not so much to engineers, but to a lot of other folks.

That's why 98% of business books can, as far as engineers are concerned, be summed up in 1-2 pages of bullet points. The rest of the content is telling stories about (usually imaginary) people, so that readers can more easily understand the ideas and their implications. We Slashdotters dismiss that part as fluff, as we get no value from it, but clearly the people who buy business books eat that shit up.

So her telling her personal story will certainly do some good. I salute her for it; it's not easy to stand up in public and admit that you have been a total fucking idiot.

Re:Wrong crowd

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

If Slashdot has taught me anything, it's that intelligent people can still do stupid things. There are different types of intelligence, and most people tend to only develop certain areas. For example, look at all the smart programmers who can't even design a decent interface.

Re:Wrong crowd

[mpe]

"For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted."

If law enforcement were aware of this why did they apparently do nothing. Even if only to arrest her for "money laundering". Why is it that "scam baiters" all appear to be ordinary people doing it in their spare time without there being any cops who do this as their job?

Re:Wrong crowd

[MasterOfMagic]

4. Divorce

Re:Wrong crowd

[autophile]

A neurosis occurs when your reaction to something is not realistic, even though you know it isn't realistic (e.g. arachnophobia is a neurosis).

A psychosis occurs when your reaction to something is not realistic, but you think it is (e.g. believing the voices in your head is a psychosis).

Exercise for /. crowd: Was Spears's reaction a neurosis or a psychosis?

Re:Wrong crowd

[elrous0]

Actually, here in South Carolina, they do in a way. All lottery money goes to funding college scholarships. It's a much-needed boon to our universities (especially in a state with a long anti-intellectual tradition when it comes to funding higher ed). So people who go to college are funded, in part, by people who clearly don't belong in college. Kind of funny that way, no?

Re:Wrong crowd

[xZgf6xHx2uhoAj9D]

In the same way that golf and donating to charity are taxes on stupidity. Just because someone is willing to spend money on something they find enjoyment in, doesn't make them stupid. It may be profoundly boring to you and I, but a huge number of people enjoy playing the lottery and never intend to win.

Re:Wrong crowd

[jvkjvk]

A neurosis occurs when your reaction to something is not realistic, even though you know it isn't realistic (e.g. arachnophobia is a neurosis).

A psychosis occurs when your reaction to something is not realistic, but you think it is (e.g. believing the voices in your head is a psychosis).

Exercise for /. crowd: Was Spears's reaction a neurosis or a psychosis?

Your exercise just shows that not everything can be divided up into neat little groups.

It is my understanding that this probably started as a "psychosis"; but under your definition all scams are psychoses of the victims. (believing a scammer is not realistic but you initially think you're getting in on a good deal).

At some point - probably when everyone around her was telling her to stop - her "psychosis" slipped into "neurosis" by your def'n. She almost certainly knew that she wasn't going to see any profit from sending more money and yet kept doing so.

But I don't think it's quite proper to treat victims of scams ad mentally unbalanced. When you receive a set of false information which you process as TRUE, all subsequent decisions are based on that initial assessment. Scammers influence you to make bad decisions. Additional support of the initially wrong assessment is continually provided by an outside source.

In many ways, it's much like politics. This is the same type of stretch one could use to call half the country neurotic or psychotic. Hmm. Perhaps you're right, after all.

Re:Wrong crowd

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Lottery is irrational behavior. Of the people who say they play because they have fun with it
a) Many (most?) are lying (to you and maybe to themselves). They either have little grasp of probability (and of orders of magnitude) or believe they will win "because this number is lucky, I chose it based on a dream/a vision/numerology/astrology/etc.", or are simply having irrational behavior (such as people who procrastinate) and are coming with an excuse for it.
b) If they indeed have fun, this probably is because they do think they can win. The reason I would have no fun if I was forced to play lottery is because I have a basic grasp of probabilities and orders of magnitude. I would simply realize I had just lost money.

Oh, and the worst offenders are people who analise past lottery results and come up with patterns, and bet based on those patterns. To add insult to injury, some of these people have logic like "the number 53 hasn't appeared in the last 30 years, which is unlikely. So I will bet on 53, because it is very unlikely it would not appear for 31 years!" These people should be bludgeoned (softly, I don't advocate serious injury) with a probability book. By the way, some months ago one of these morons appeared on TV posing as an "expert on lottery". He showed a ridiculous misunderstanding of probability. The only useful (though obvious) advice he gave was to make pools. This does make sense if the prize if big (and if you trust the people in the pool... or make a careful contract).

Re:Wrong crowd

[Robocoastie]

Wether she's actually intelligent is up for debate; the facts seem to indicate otherwise. There's a fellow in my hometown that has done the same thing despite warnings from the president of the bank even and family members but last I heard he still was believing it would pay off. I think it's the same phenomenon that happens when people refuse to hear the evidence against the lights in the sky they saw as anything but a flying saucer from outer space. "I know what I saw!" - actually they don't know what they saw, they are not a trained observer and don't know how the brain forms patterns and refuse to hear evidence to the contrary. There's bound to be a psychological term for this.

Re:Wrong crowd

[elrous0]

Just because someone *enjoys* doing something stupid doesn't make the act any less stupid. God bless the morons of the world though. They've given me much laughter on Youtube. They help pay for college scholarships with their foolish lottery spending. And they help move my furniture, pump my gas, etc. My only problem with them is that they're allowed to vote in elections, unfairly equating them with the non-morons.

Re:Wrong crowd

[Hoi Polloi]

Technical skill has nothing to do with having a functioning bullshit detector. I don't know how to build a circuit but I do know that no legit person comes up to a complete stranger and offers them millions of dollars for "a small fee". Even animals can sense danger.

Re:Wrong crowd

[Hoi Polloi]

I figure lotteries are taxes on those who don't grasp probability in mathematics and the desperate. Why do you think so many beggers turn around and spend those cups of coins on scratch tickets? (I see them do it)

Sad thing is that lotteries are there because people don't want to admit they need more tax revenue but don't want a fair tax system. They'd rather have a system based on people desperately scratching away.

Re:Wrong crowd

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Technical skill has nothing to do with having a functioning bullshit detector.

Exactly. Glad you agree with my point.

just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[circletimessquare]

yes, for most of us here on slashdot, this is incredibly brain dead, but in general, there is a problem with you if you blame the victim for a crime, no matter how foolish or stupid they acted

whether a rape victim for wearing revealing clothes, or a guy walking in a dangerous neighborhood at night, yes: you can attack the victim, but if you want to actually claim any moral highground (which many of you seem to assume with a withering condescending tone as you blame the victim), the person who bears 100% responsibility and accountability for a crime is the criminal themselves, and only the criminal, and no one else

using knowledge and care to avoid crime is of course an important aspect of any behavior, but just because someone fails to do this, for any reason, does not mean they share blame for being victimized: a transgression is a transgression is a transgression. no one ASKS to be victimized in such a horrible way

if you walk by the front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and no one is home, and in plain site is a stack of 20 dollar bills, you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20s. the person who left them there like that is, yes, pretty stupid. but they deserve zero blame. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the trangressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit

any other opinion on the issue is, frankly, not morally or philosophically coherent

although, for some you then, by all means, heckle the woman who gave away $$00K, since some of you honeslty and openly claim no moral high ground

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Free the Cowards]

Sorry, but that's simply wrong.

There are certain actions which you can take which, while not in any sense illegal, are virtually guaranteed to cause harm to yourself.

Leaving a stack of money out for anyone to take is one of these. Playing along to an internet scam is another. And although I'm sure I'll get flamed for saying so, teasingly parading past men in a bad neighborhood while wearing a revealing outfit is another.

Your fallacy is essentially in assuming that blame is a percentage which must be portioned out among the actors involved in the event. It is true that if I leave a stack of money out in plain view it is 100% the fault of the criminal for taking it. It is also 100% my fault for being a complete idiot.

If I take an action which I know, or should have very good reason to know, will cause me harm even if that harm is illegal, then it is my fault for taking that action and I bear the blame for the consequences. It is also the fault of whoever actually does it to me, but that doesn't change the first part.

People like this woman cause crime by making it pay off for the criminals. She deserves a whole heap of blame, just as much as the scammers do.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[JonahsDad]

Where's her bailout???

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Guspaz]

Nobody ever said that the people behind the scam weren't ultimately culpable. However, there's simply no helping some people. All the blame on instigating the scam falls on the originators. All the blame for it working falls on the victim's gross incompetence.

That said, she's very lucky. If it only takes her three to four years to dig herself out of almost half a million dollars in debt, she's far better off than most people. Most people would take decades to dig themselves out of that kind of debt.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[SendBot]

And for winners of the darwin award, can we blame the world in which they live? Maybe said world could be sued or criminally prosecuted to maintain justice.

Just going with your morally and philosophically coherent logic here, since you claim it is the only correct opinion.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[ivan256]

Your analogy is broken. This is not like walking through a dangerous neighborhood at night. This is like walking into a dangerous neighborhood at night, finding the type of person who occasionally robs people at gunpoint, borrowing his gun, and shooting yourself with it.

Not only is this person not a victim, but she should herself be prosecuted. She funded these people. She is the cause of this type of crime. The scammers are just a catalyst.

This is nothing like blaming a rape victim. A rape victim doesn't have a choice about being raped, revealing clothes or not. This person had every chance not to be a "victim". Nobody forced her to do anything.

This is not like leaving a stack of 20's out in the open. She didn't leave them around, and they weren't stolen. She gave the money to these people.

any other opinion on the issue is, frankly, not morally or philosophically coherent

Funny, I find your opinion to be logically incoherent. A brainless reaction founded on a gross misunderstanding of reality.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[sammyF70]

So, if you try to cross a 4 lane highway during rush hour and you end up underneath a truck, no blame should be put on you?

Your logic relies heavily on the word "criminal". That's quite problematic, as its definition is not absolute. Crossing a highway IS criminally stupid. Falling for a well known scam and ignoring every warnings one is given is as stupid (though generally not as deadly). Spears saw it coming and didn't react, she is partially to blame for what happened to her.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[tuffy]

She gave the scammers money because they promised millions of dollars in return. Unlike a rape or armed robbery, it's the greed of the scam victims themselves that lures them into the scheme. Thus, they have some culpability in the crime that someone attacked on the street does not.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Chris Burke]

Your fallacy is essentially in assuming that blame is a percentage which must be portioned out among the actors involved in the event. It is true that if I leave a stack of money out in plain view it is 100% the fault of the criminal for taking it. It is also 100% my fault for being a complete idiot.

Yes exactly. Blame is not a zero-sum game. Thinking otherwise is idiotic, or, in most cases, an attempt to deny blame using the false logic of "That person over there is to blame, therefore I cannot be blamed". If you don't think about it too hard it makes sense, but we shouldn't fall for such blatant illogic.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Free the Cowards]

Should be obvious when you consider that there are events for for which nobody is to blame, but alas, rational thinking is not most people's strong point.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[tempestdata]

I dont think anyone is BLAMING the stupid woman who gave away $400K to a liar (or group of liars).

They are doing exactly what you did in your post "the person who left them there like that is, yes, pretty stupid."

The reason scams such as the nigerian 419 one work, is that intelligence like everything else is distributed over a curve of some sort. By definition, approx. half the people you see everyday are of below average intelligence. Scams such as these target people who sit in the below the bottom 1% on the intelligence curve. Which explains their mode of operation, "if you blast this scam to enough people, eventually you'll find someone who'll bite". In other words, "if you look hard enough, eventually you'll find someone stupid enough".

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Free the Cowards]

Please argue against what I said, not what you imagine I said.

If you took reasonable precautions to secure your house or your car then you are not at fault.

If you left your car unlocked, parked in a bad neighborhood, with a big sign on it saying "valuable stuff inside, car unlocked, please steal what you want" then you are absolutely at fault.

I did not ever say that all victims are to blame for the crime they suffer from. Only that if the victim does something which will obviously lead to a crime, they are at fault.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[snspdaarf]

Yes, she did not deserve to get ripped off. Women do not deserve to get raped. Nobody deserves to have someone walk in their home an take money off the table.

However....

If everyone tells you that your behavior is going to make you the victim of a criminal act and you still insist on continuing your behavior, then I get to withhold my sympathy. That is where I draw the line; at the point where there is no doubt you knew you were putting yourself at risk.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[BaronHethorSamedi]

Wow. The society you propose, sir, is a disturbing one indeed. It's a short leap indeed from your premises to "if it isn't nailed down, it's mine."

Or how about:
Woman in revealing clothing=invitation to rape, ergo,
Woman in burka=better for everyone. (Isn't that the point of the burka, after all--men can't be held responsible for their impulses?)

The whole point to laws, particularly criminal laws, is attaching consequences to certain behaviors, regardless of any underlying negligence by the victim. If I leave a stack of money out in plain view, and my neighbor takes it, I may, as you say, be a complete idiot. My neighbor, however, is indeed 100% guilty of theft. It makes no difference if the money is on my front lawn, or in a safe in my basement. If he removes it without my consent, he has committed a crime for which the law will hold him responsible.

And we all need to hold him responsible. If we indulge in the really repellent notion that "people like this woman cause crime," we're admitting that the criminal actors do not have responsibility. Victims of criminal acts already bear the consequences of criminal acts (does it fit into your moral calculus, for example, that the rape victim may already have suffered terribly as a result of "her" actions?)--assigning blame to them for the conduct of another person is a mathematics of responsibility that has no place in any world I care to live in.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Free the Cowards]

I don't see what's disturbing about assigning fault if you carry out an action which has obvious consequences.

The rest of your post is all completely irrelevant because it addresses points that I simply did not make. At no point did I ever state that the criminal should not be held responsible. He should. But if the victim did something that obviously leads to the crime being committed, then the victim is also at fault.

Blame is not something that needs to be portioned out so that it can add up to 100%. If you leave a stack of money out in plain view, and your neighbor takes it, then your neighbor is 100% guilty of theft as you say. However you are also 100% at fault for that theft, because you either knew or should have known the consequences of that action when you carried it out.

And the simple fact is that people like this woman do cause crime. Maybe you don't like it, but it's a fact. If everybody were smart enough to avoid these scams, then the scammers would not longer carry them out. Obviously this is not actually something that can be accomplished, so it's kind of a useless thing to know, but it's still true.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[solarium_rider]

although, for some you then, by all means, heckle the woman who gave away $$00K, since some of you honeslty and openly claim no moral high ground

$ echo $$00K
1136300K

Whoa, that's a lot of cash.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Noctrnl]

Generally I think your point is valid. However, I don't think so in thise case.

To me, the old saying "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me" applies here. If you really want to break this down, she wasn't scammed once. She was scammed several times... in the same way... by the same person. Honestly, I don't see how you can look at it and say she was completely blameless in the matter.

To use your anology:
If you leave that stack of 20 dollar bills, yes, it's my decision to steal them. However, if you do so every day for the next month, and every day I take them in the same way, are you not a little more than stupid at that point? Would you not be somewhat to blame for your own misfortune? Surely you don't think you can claim it was 100% my doing after it had happened over and over and over again.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[cayenne8]

But what he the wind blows that stack of $20's out into the street in front of you? if you grab them as you can as the blow away what is the crime here? He you do nothing the money is lost just the same as if you pick it up off the street before it all blows away

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Free the Cowards]

I don't see why good people should automatically be held blameless simply because they are good.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, after all.

If good people cause bad things to happen then they should receive blame proportionate to their role, not their motivation. That they caused bad things to happen to themselves shouldn't change matters at all. This doesn't make them bad people, but neither does being a good person make them fault-free.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Fjandr]

I agree that in general, vicims of crime should not be blamed. However, there are exceptions to everything. Comparing this crime to something like rape, murder, robbery, burglary, etc is being intellectually dishonest in the extreme.

In a lot of ways, this shouldn't even be considered a crime. Group A told an utterly illogical lie to person B. Person B gave group A money. Persons C, D, and E told person B she was an idiot and should stop. Rinse and repeat until the money's gone.

She has nobody to blame but herself.

There is no moral high ground to claim. This isn't a moral issue. It's an issue of someone acting through blind greed, who repeatedly and stubbornly resisted all attempts to get her to think rationally.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[frieko]

Except that (as I understand it), the scammer is offering you money to break the law. If you get shot by security while trying to rob a bank, it's your fault. Same here.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[vux984]

She gave the scammers money because they promised millions of dollars in return. Unlike a rape or armed robbery, it's the greed of the scam victims themselves that lures them into the scheme. Thus, they have some culpability in the crime that someone attacked on the street does not.

I see... so if I promised you millions of dollars to come into the back alley, and then raped and robbed you, you get to share in some of the 'culpability'? What if instead of millions of dollars... I just offer to give you a ride home? Does your greed not to pay a taxi similarly factor into 'culpability'?

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[BaronHethorSamedi]

And the simple fact is that people like this woman do cause crime. Maybe you don't like it, but it's a fact.

And it's not a fact merely because you declare it to be so. Your own fallacy is in implying a causal relationship that doesn't exist. Turning it on its head makes just as much sense: if scammers like these didn't exist, no one would be able to fall victim to them. Your observation amounts to nothing more than saying, "Since there are victims, there must be crimes."

Some scams are obvious, some are very subtle. Some are devious enough that even smart, well-protected people fall victim to them. If a smart, well-protected person falls victim to a smart, well-equipped fraudster, do we then fault the victim for the existence of smart, well-equipped fraudsters? That's why criminal responsibility is relevant to your contention; if we fault the victim (rather than placing the fault squarely on the person who elects to commit a criminal act--not who is required to commit one merely because the opportunity presents itself), then we eventually require everyone to live in a perpetual state of expensive paranoia. Is there a point at which it's not my fault if I'm victimized? If so, where is it? If I'm a rape victim, is it the burka?

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Free the Cowards]

It takes two to tango. If there were no scammers, or no victims, then there would be none of these crimes.

Fault is not binary. If you leave the door to your house open with a sign that says, "please come inside and steal all of my shit", then you are deeply at fault for any resulting theft. If you have three different locks and a security system and a large, mean dog then your fault in any theft is pretty minimal. In between, your fault is in between.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Tom]

No you don't blame the victim, but even in law there is such a thing as being careless. It will not generally reduce the sentence of the guilty, but if you try to, for example, collect damages, they will be greatly reduced.

Being careless isn't the same as being stupid, though they often meet. What is important, though, is that people are responsible for their own actions. And that doesn't include only the guilty, it also includes the victim. The world has no responsibility to look out for you. It's nice if it does, and most of us are social people and responsible enough to help if it's not too much of a burden, but anyone acting as if the world is their nanny deserves being taught a lesson.

And yes, I've had mine. We all do, mostly during childhood. For some people, they come very late or they're slow learners. That's just how things work.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Alomex]

The flaw here is to presume that culpability adds to a fixed amount. Only under that assumption if the victim is partially culpable then the attacker is less so. But the fact that culpability is not a fixed amount should be no surprise. Say, killing the victim does not reduce the amount of criminality from the aggresor: to the contrary it increases it .

So if the total amount of culpability is variable, we have no problem here. Rape is rape and you go to jail for it. That is independent and irrelevant of the fact that it was not prudent to walk late at night, drunk, through a bad neighbourhood and as such the victim also gets a certain number of "culpability" units. Points which are, by the way, totally minimal compared to those of the aggresor given the enormity of the crime.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[droopycom]

Wrong analogy: The drivers are not criminal.

A better analogy:

You are at a pedestrian crossing, your light is green, the timer say you still have 30 seconds to cross and it would only take you 5.
You can hear and can see a sports car driving really fast your way, swerving around badly as if the driver is drunk, showing no signs its going to stop.
You decide to cross anyway, because it will be his fault. (And you will be dead).

Less obvious form of this are actually pretty common in driving.
For example, you are driving on the right lane. Some guy is trying to merge from the on-ramp, he is kind of slow, obviously not very good at merging, and it looks like he is going to run out of space and collide into you unless he brakes really hard at the last minute, go off road, or you let him go. Legally, you dont have to let him go or do anything to help him. Legally if he collides with you its 100% his fault, not yours. So some of you are going to risk the accident rather than slow down to let the guy go.

Those of you who do are stupid. And I will say I've been known to be stupid from time to time.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[E 99]

Your fallacy is essentially in assuming that blame is a percentage which must be portioned out among the actors involved in the event. It is true that if I leave a stack of money out in plain view it is 100% the fault of the criminal for taking it. It is also 100% my fault for being a complete idiot.

If I take an action which I know, or should have very good reason to know, will cause me harm even if that harm is illegal, then it is my fault for taking that action and I bear the blame for the consequences. It is also the fault of whoever actually does it to me, but that doesn't change the first part.

So there was a total of 200% of blame to be distributed? That makes 0% of sense.

And clearly, the woman did NOT know that her actions would cause her harm. That she SHOULD have known, is just a subjective judgment by the 99% of us who WOULD have known. She didn't. It's not her fault that she's stupid. 100% of the blame (that's my funny way of saying "all of the blame") goes to the scammer.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[adolf]

Your analogy is quite fucked, and plainly wrong.

Crossing 4-lane interstate (or most other limited-access) highways on foot is stupid, but also is illegal. Certainly, it would be the pedestrian's fault if they get plastered by a truck.

There are, however, other 4-lane highways which are perfectly safe to cross, within the confines of what is lawful, at any time of day. Main street, in my own town, is one such highway. Sure, there are traffic lights and crosswalks throughout downtown, but also up to four concurrent state and US routes sharing the road, and pretty dense traffic at certain times of day.

There is even at least one crosswalk enabling pedestrians right-of-way on a busy 4-lane state highway which is NOT marked by traffic light in my little town. To use it, one just enters the crosswalk and begins walking out into traffic. Stupid? Perhaps. Dangerous? Obviously. Criminal? It's a fucking crosswalk!

And if I, a pedestrian, am crossing within the law at any of these places and get hit by a truck, it most certainly IS the driver's fault. It's their responsibility to NOT hit me, no matter how many IQ points I'm missing.

Your analogy suggests that if I see someone walking around with a sword, and I pass them on the sidewalk and get cut, that it's my fault for doing so. Just like it's my fault if I'm a slender and attractive lady with provocative attire, walking home, late at night, down a dark road, and I get raped/robbed/kidnapped. It's my fault, right? Cuz, obviously, I'm ASKING to be raped. Yeah, sure.

Or, suppose a man in a ski mask is knocking on my door, and after I answer it, he clubs me over the head and helps himself to my belongings. I suppose that's my fault, too? Yeah. Right. What if it's January in northern Ohio? What if it's not? Why the fuck would it matter? It's my door, and there's no law prohibiting me from doing whatever I want with it. I can open it whenever I want, for whomever I want. The guy in the ski mask has a responsibility to follow laws and not steal from others, no matter how stupid his victim is.

Just because a thing is obviously foolish to do, doesn't mean that the blame gets shifted to the victim. Being stupid and/or doing stupid things isn't a crime.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Free the Cowards]

So there was a total of 200% of blame to be distributed? That makes 0% of sense.

I'm glad you agree. Blame doesn't get distributed at all. Blame is merely assigned.

You're probably thinking that I should say that 50% of the blame goes to each. But I don't like that terminology, because it implies that each one gets less of the blame than if one were 100% at fault and the other were 0%. It's possible to have a scenario where nobody gets any blame (a pure accident), or a scenario where both people get the full blame, or a scenario where one person gets full blame and one gets none.

It's not a situation where you sit down with X blame to portion out, and then you figure out how large of the pie each person gets, where one person getting more means another person gets less. Each person's blame can be fixed without looking at the others.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[brkello]

I agree somewhat with the sentiment but in this case the person has to take some responsibility. It's like everyone telling you that Michael Jackson is a pedophile, yet you still let him baby sit your children over a 2 year period. Yeah, Michael Jackson is disgusting, but you still need to own up for your own stupidity.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[stdarg]

You're probably thinking that I should say that 50% of the blame goes to each. But I don't like that terminology, because it implies that each one gets less of the blame than if one were 100% at fault and the other were 0%.

If it's just an issue of terminology, that can be fixed. Usually in cases where two people did something bad, the terminology to use is "They are 100% responsible" rather than "Each is 50% responsible" even though mathematically it's the same. It avoids the implication that each is less responsible, like you said. But to throw out the whole concept of dividing up blame is rather hard-line, isn't it?

It's not a situation where you sit down with X blame to portion out, and then you figure out how large of the pie each person gets, where one person getting more means another person gets less. Each person's blame can be fixed without looking at the others.

I don't know... what about in situations where people do have different amounts of blame? Do you have a method of stating that that doesn't reduce to percentages? Or do you believe those situations don't exist?

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[stdarg]

But in the given example, the blame is for two different events. One is being an idiot, one is stealing money. Two people are 100% responsible for two different events.

Even if the money hadn't been stolen, the one person would be to blame for being an idiot. He wouldn't be less of an idiot if the money hadn't been stolen. And if the first person hadn't been an idiot, the second person would still be to blame for stealing. He wouldn't be less to blame if he had to crack a safe to get it.

There are more nebulous events where the blame has to be shared. Imagine if we're assigning blame for the human-caused portion of global warming. It would be silly to say that you can't divide up the blame according to how much pollution each party produced, right?

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Free the Cowards]

But to throw out the whole concept of dividing up blame is rather hard-line, isn't it?

Depends on exactly what you mean. If you mean throwing out the concept that two people who are equally to blame must each individually be less to blame than a single person who is wholly to blame, then no, I don't think that's hard-line at all, but merely good sense. Responsibility and blame don't get diluted when you spread them around.

I don't know... what about in situations where people do have different amounts of blame? Do you have a method of stating that that doesn't reduce to percentages? Or do you believe those situations don't exist?

Certainly those situations exist. I don't know exactly what method to use. A sensible way to do it might be to define an amount, 100%, which corresponds to the maximum possible blame an individual can have for any event, then assign percentages based on that. So you might have two people who both get 100%, or who both get 20%, or one gets 20% and one gets 50%. Of course these numbers become extremely arbitrary and I'm not really sure how it would all work out.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[sammyF70]

I admit my analogy was not the best of all time, but it doesn't change the point that if you're knowingly doing something incredibly stupid (and that's what the woman in TFA did) you're to blame for the result too.

I'll try another one : you see someone running amok with a gun, and you, a passerby without any psychology background, decide to confront him. If you get shot, it doesn't make you a criminal, but you should acknowledge that you're partially to blame.

Saying "criminals are the ones to blame, victims are victims and should be left alone" is running away from taking responsability for your actions. I won't get into the whole "raped women" meme, as it's a hornest's nest which just can not be generalized. But in a similar vein, if you're having unprotected sex with someone you just met who has AIDS but didn't tell you and you end up being infected, then that someone is criminal ... but you can blame yourself too. Doesn't make you criminal. It just makes you plain dumb.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Dan541]

It's still the victims stupidity

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[greyhueofdoubt]

>>if you walk by the front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and no one is home, and in plain site is a stack of 20 dollar bills,
>>you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20s. the person who left them there like that is, yes, pretty stupid. but
>>they deserve zero blame. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the trangressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit

Tell that to my insurance company. They will not cover those losses due to negligence on my part. And the DA might be willing to prosecute me if the baddie slipped and broke his neck while stealing the money because I created an 'attractive nuisance' type of situation.

-b

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Dan541]

She was attempting to commit a crime. The scam victim is not innocent, they think they are aiding and abetting a criminal in a foreign country and will be financially rewarded for it.

A burglar who falls through my skylight and breaks their neck also gets what they deserve.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Brain Damaged Bogan]

exactly... just like people who join scAmway... it's their own fault for their greed as much as it is the fault of the bastard that roped them in.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[adolf]

You're Catholic, aren't you?

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[snspdaarf]

Hmm. Maybe she was. But, she sounds more than a little batty to me. I have seen similar behavior in a relative with some form of dementia. If she is not competent, she can't be held responsible for her actions. Now, I don't know what her mental state actually is, but can you honestly argue that sending almost half a million dollars to some unknown over two years is rational behavior? To carry on your own example, if the burglar who falls through your skylight turns out to be a 22 year old who functions at the level of a three or four year old, do you feel the same way?

I dunno. Fuck it.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Dan541]

I have no mercy for someone who breaks into my house.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[kingturkey]

Your analogy to rape or mugging fails when you consider that she voluntarily gave the money away, in the case of rape or a mugging the person is threatened with violence or physically forced, this woman simply handed away her life savings under no duress. The scammers are bad people, certainly, but falling for the scam requires you to be severely stupid.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[stephanruby]

On a side-note, this woman could have some form of age-related mental illness.

I know it's a taboo topic to talk about. I also know that the journalist took great pains to paint the picture of an intelligent woman, but really, being an RN, teaching CPR, marrying couples, and communicating with "lightning-fast sign language". That's not really a complete measure of mental health. Is it?

For instance, her sign language ability would only indicate that at least a function of her brain was still working correctly, but it is no guarantee that everything else was working correctly. As to her Oregon Registered Nurse certification, I couldn't find any other registered nurse, even among the really old nurses, with as many probationary blemishes on their records as she's had.

The only sane one here seems to her deaf husband. Apparently, along with the FBI and the police, her husband was one of the ones who kept on telling her that this was just all a big scam, and yet, even after receiving all those warnings, the wife kept on going -- disobeying her husband -- disregarding the FBI -- disregarding the police, and investing/realizing the bulk of their loss even well after all the alarm bells had already gone well off.

That's why I'm thinking she really might have some sort of mental illness, and if I were her husband, I would be asking the courts -- to judge her incompetent -- and remove her rights to access/control their accounts, otherwise she might do it again, but just with a different scam the next time.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[Kerelslied]

yes, for most of us here on slashdot, this is incredibly brain dead, but in general, there is a problem with you if you blame the victim for a crime, no matter how foolish or stupid they acted

The poor victim thought she was helping stealing 20 million. Luckily it was about foreign monney, so no harm done.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[sammyF70]

Why? Because I assume people to take responsability of their action instead of blaming everybody else? If that's your definition of catholic, then I guess I am one in your very weird and twisted world, even though I don't believe carpenter wives just get pregnant because some ghostly entity with multiple personae disorder passed by.

Re:just to preempt all of the obvious comments

[jvkjvk]

yes, for most of us here on slashdot, this is incredibly brain dead, but in general, there is a problem with you if you blame the victim for a crime, no matter how foolish or stupid they acted

Yes, for some set of crimes you are absolutely correct - the victim has little to no responsibility for what happened. A blanket statement that this is true for all crimes needs a little more proof or logic behind it than a simple statement like this, though.

whether a rape victim for wearing revealing clothes, or a guy walking in a dangerous neighborhood at night, yes: you can attack the victim, but if you want to actually claim any moral highground (which many of you seem to assume with a withering condescending tone as you blame the victim), the person who bears 100% responsibility and accountability for a crime is the criminal themselves, and only the criminal, and no one else

This was none of those. The only crime you can compare this with is "Nigerian email scam". What is so hard talking about what actually happened? Perhaps because doing so blows your assertions away?

For a rape victim - where is the volition that is shown in rape? Hint - there is none!
For the nigerian email scam - does the scammer through the email "rape" your bank account?

This was entirely volition and wrong choices. She bears the entire responsibility for sending her money to someone else. It was an action she took on her own volition. It doesn't matter that it was the wrong action or that she made the wrong choice. The fact is that she made a choice. The fact is that she acted.

This is quite a funny post coming from you. Personal responsibility is still personal responsibility no matter how you cut it.

using knowledge and care to avoid crime is of course an important aspect of any behavior, but just because someone fails to do this, for any reason, does not mean they share blame for being victimized: a transgression is a transgression is a transgression. no one ASKS to be victimized in such a horrible way

Of course no one asks to be entirely broke. I am not blaming her for being victimized. I am asserting that she had control over whether she was victimzed or not - in contrast to the rape example you brought up, in contrast to this example of yours:

if you walk by the front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and no one is home, and in plain site is a stack of 20 dollar bills, you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20s. the person who left them there like that is, yes, pretty stupid. but they deserve zero blame. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the trangressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit

Yes, they deserve zero blame. That is why we don't put these people in jail. This case, however IS NOT LIKE your example. Again. Let me try and modify this example to fit the facts we know:

if you walk by a front door of a house, and the house is wide open, and a woman is sitting by a stack of 20 dollar bills inside, you are 100% responsible and culpable if you take that stack of $20. If the woman in the chair comes out of the house and gives them to you she is yes, pretty stupid. but she deserves zero blame for the crime. the criminal, ALWAYS the criminal is responsible for the transgressions that the criminal freely chooses to commit, and the woman is responsible for any action she *freely* chooses to commit

Perhaps this highlights the differences between the examples you gave and this case.

any other opinion on the issue is, frankly, not morally or philosophically coherent

Frankly, i'm not sure you thought this through. You have provided no moral or philosophical basis for your reasoning. Your examples are off base and do not fit the given situation. You are conflating crimes which are perpetrated against someon

For those not reading TFA

[LockeOnLogic]

There's some comedy gold in there, a few tidbits!

"Janella Spears doesnt think shes a sucker or an easy mark."

"They said President Bush and FBI Director "Robert Muller" (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help."

"When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bushâ(TM)s letter said. Spears continued to send funds."

"Most of the missives were rife with misspellings."

Priceless! ...okay i'm going to hell...

Re:For those not reading TFA

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think a bunch of misspellings from somebody claiming to be President Bush would be a tipoff of something wrong. No misspellings would be a tipoff!

Re:For those not reading TFA

[Xibby]

A letter from President Bush without misspellings would be an obvious scam. Clever Nigerians.

Re:For those not reading TFA

[mrsquid0]

>I don't think a bunch of misspellings from somebody claiming to
>be President Bush would be a tipoff of something wrong. No
>misspellings would be a tipoff!

Good one! I wish that I still had some mod points left.

Re:For those not reading TFA

[Hoi Polloi]

It is a good thing they didn't try to rip off DIAMOND DAVE!

Janella Spears. . .

[MagusSlurpy]

I wonder if she is related. . .

Re:Janella Spears. . .

[scribblej]

No one Reads the Fucking Article, I know - but hey... it specifically says she's not. So +1 for the joke, -1 for obviously not reading.

Re:Janella Spears. . .

[torry_loon]

Leave Janella Alone!!!!!!

Good causes wasted

[Haoie]

Think of all the good that amount could've done for the local community, or any charity, if it was donated, or even just invested wisely.

But no, it was squandered away.

Re:Good causes wasted

[Locke2005]

Think of how much MORE good this money will do when invested into the Nigerian economy!

Re:Good causes wasted

[dvice_null]

Now it is helping the poor Nigerians.

Re:Good causes wasted

[RAMMS EIN]

``But no, it was squandered away.''

How do you mean? They money is lost to the woman who gave it away, true, but it's still somewhere. What do you know, perhaps it's now working to improve the lives of poor africans who weren't fortunate enough to be born in a prosperous country.

Re:Good causes wasted

[Buck Fuddy]

Now it is helping the poor Nigerians.

No. It's helping one (formerly) poor Nigerian.

Thoughtfully?

[MarkusQ]

Thoughtfully, Spears has gone public with her story as a warning to others not to fall victim.

Perhaps. But Occam's razor suggests that it never occurred to her that there might be a downside to publicly admitting to being this stupid, and she went public not "thoughtfully" as a "warning to others" but rather unthinkingly as a further example of what happens when you never think things through.

--MarkusQ

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[randyest]

What? Nigerian scams are lies. Casinos post the rules, and play by them. And you can actually win a little in a casino. No one ever won by sending money to a Nigerian.

Said one banker to another...

[Colin Smith]

400,000 dollars is peanuts... There are millions of much dumber people out there.

 

Re:Said one banker to another...

[bb5ch39t]

Yea - most in Congress and the Executive Branch of the US government.

Re:Said one banker to another...

[jcr]

I remember a story a couple years ago of some woman who embezzled over a million from the company she worked for, and sent it to a 419 scammer. She's doing time.

-jcr

Re:Said one banker to another...

[cbiltcliffe]

Who said he was referring to the economy?

It doesn't matter what you're talking about; for the most part the government is retarded.

Tubes - net neutrality - copyright - patents - civil rights. Take your pick. You can pick a retarded stand on any issue from government.

your view of morality is logically incoherent

[circletimessquare]

which is worse?:

1. man falls asleep at wheel of truck, smashes into bus full of kids, kills 10. feels awful about it

2. man carefully watches bus route for weeks, carefully plotting and calculating exactly when to smash into bus to kill children. he kills 2 children. he feels bad he didn't kill more

#2 is absolutely many times more criminal than #1, even though he killed far less children. because of a magic concept which all legal codes understand: intent

any legal code in the world has a difference of understanding between manslaughter and murder, with the punishment for murder being far worse than manslaughter. the magic difference? intent

do you know what intent is? you apparently do not, it currently does not inform your opinions

if you leave a stack of $20s out, you are thoughtless. you have no intent. therefore, you have committed no crime. meanwhile, if you walk into an open door and take the stack of $20s, you have a clear intent to commit a transgressive act and relieve someone else of something valuable which is not yours. you, and you alone, are culpable for what you have done

the magic concept?

intent

intent underlies all readings of morality in all cultures, for clear and obvious reasons of logical and philosophical coherence on the question of right and wrong

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[Free the Cowards]

Intent has nothing to do with blame.

I'm not talking about how much people should be punished. As far as I'm aware that was not even brought up in the thread. I am talking about whose fault a particular outcome is.

If I carry out an action with well-known consequences then I am at fault for those consequences. This is true whether I'm parking illegally and getting a ticket, climbing a tree in a thunderstorm and getting struck by lightning, or giving a scammer money and getting ripped off.

Certainly, what the scammer did was morally and legally wrong and what this woman did was not. But that is orthogonal to the fact that it is this woman's fault that she got ripped off. (And it is also the scammer's fault for ripping her off.)

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[LordKronos]

Nice straw man you got there. How many times was the guy in #1 warned that he was falling asleep while heading right towards the school bus (and that if he did so he'd surely kill some of them) before deciding "no, I'm just gonna fall asleep...the kids will be fine"

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[kv9]

maybe guy #2 should try the sleeping approach. this way, everybody wins?

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[drachenstern]

What if you're a kleptomaniac or have dual personalities and don't realize you've taken the money? What if you have some sort of sleepwalk disorder and you behave like a bird (taking shiny or valuable things just because they are shiny or there)?

Eh, quit bailing the ship out with the sieve. We get it, but you're still ignoring about half the argument. Intent is nothing without the environment. You may have an intent to rob a bank (plenty of fore-planning and lots of evidence at your house), but you show up and someone is already robbing the bank, and you have a fit of vigilante wrongs-righter, and so you take out the guy who's already robbing the bank, should you be arrested for stopping the robbery, when it would be obvious to anyone investigating you that you had been planning to rob a bank? Obviously you had intent.

Intent is a tenuous thing, and I know that you know that.

And as for the line about intent underlies all readings of morality, I debate that and insert the proof of the understanding of a young child about what is right and wrong. And I'm not talking about some child with an abnormally religious childhood, I'm talking about a child from an areligious or an agnostic home, who has only been taught that they should be themselves. They know what is right and wrong at an instinctual level, and no amount of "education" can instill that, it can only refine or distort.

Now, for your retort which I will cleverly ignore while avoiding low budget HDV filipino horror movies in NYC... Where can I catch Banga? Love to check out indie stuff...

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[RingDev]

If you want to get into intent, then she is significantly MORE guilty.

She was interested in an obviously illegal opperation that would net her a significant untaxed income. Even if she was oblivious to the legal rammifications, even a village idiot could identify it as ill-gotten gains.

She was a co-conspiritor. If we tried her on intent, she would be a criminal in the US where she currently resides.

Also, I did not RTFA, but it is entirely possible that the acts of the scammer were not illegal in Nigeria. In which case, he is not a criminal. The scammer has not likely been convicted in the US so he wouldn't a criminal here either.

She was greedy, irrisponsible, and blind to every single warning that her friends, family, and even law enforcement agents were giving here.

She was not forced, she gave it up willingly. This isn't blaming the rape victum, nor the home owner, nor any of your other straw man arguements. She wasn't destitute and desperate. She wasn't mentally handicapped. She gave her money away to people who asked for it.

She is nothing more than a prostitute who called the cops when her John refused to pay her after she provided a service.

Her family has my pitty, but she is entitled to nothing but scorn.

-Rick

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[Free the Cowards]

Excellent point there!

As they say, you cannot cheat an honest man (or woman in this case).

Now, I don't believe that to be true 100% of the time. But in this case it certainly is true. The scammer got her involved by selling her a criminal scheme. It was of course not exactly the same criminal scheme as the one that he was actually carrying out, but the fact of the matter is that this woman thought she was involved in a criminal enterprise, and willingly participated.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[Jon_S]

Plus he said "less children", not "fewer children".

How can you believe someone like that?

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[LandDolphin]

"She is nothing more than a prostitute who called the cops when her John refused to pay her after she provided a service."

See needs to get herself a Pimp. HE could handle that for her.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[smallfries]

You're trying hard to have your argument both ways, but it doesn't work. There is a very old saying amongst scammers "You can't cheat an honest man". All scams rely on the victim being willing to commit a small crime, or bend the rules in some way for a large payoff.

I haven't read the article this time (maybe I'm the only one in this case) so I haven't read exactly what was supposed to be the reason that the money was deposited in her account. Normally it is to evade some kind of duty, or to get around an accounting issue.

Without the intent to break this little rule in exchange for the payout, the victim would never get scammed. So the victim in these scams is not free of blame.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[gcatullus]

Intent is important, but what was the intent of the woman who "fell victim" to the scammers? She clearly was originally trying to get money that wasn't hers. How is this different than if she was fencing stolen television sets? Her intent was to profit from ill gotten gains.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[E 99]

If I carry out an action with well-known consequences then I am at fault for those consequences. This is true whether I'm parking illegally and getting a ticket, climbing a tree in a thunderstorm and getting struck by lightning, or giving a scammer money and getting ripped off.

Well-known to whom? If you do something well-known to you to have adverse consequences, then it is logical to assign to you the responsibility for the consequences. If a six-year-old is walking down the street with a $1 bill, and a scammer tells him that his mother said to give him the $1, and he falls for the "scam", is it his own fault, because it is "well-known" to 99.99% of us that his mother said no such thing? No, it wasn't well-known to the victim, so what the rest of us know is irrelevant. If the victim of the scam knows its a scam, and goes along with it anyway, then sure, assign all the blame you want to them.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[Free the Cowards]

One cannot grow to be her age without coming to know that there are scammers in the world, that a deal which is too good to be true almost certainly is, and that taking money which isn't yours is wrong. That she chose to ignore all of these in her reckless pursuit of Twenty! Million! Dollars! is sufficient to place blame on her head.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[Free the Cowards]

I'm assuming that her greed overrode whatever small amount of sense she had managed to acquire.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[hotdiggitydawg]

Certainly, what the scammer did was morally and legally wrong and what this woman did was not.

Actually most Nigerian scams involve inducing the victim to participate in some form of illegal activity (eg. smuggling money out of Nigeria). I don't think it is as clear-cut as you suggest. I'd be willing to bet her greed trumped her morality.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[Free the Cowards]

You're right indeed. I wasn't thinking her role through when I wrote the above.

She thought she was involved in stealing twenty million dollars of someone else's money. She was actually involved in stealing $400,000 of her own money. She may have been tricked but she wasn't at all in the right.

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[Restil]

There are three basic ways to make millions of dollars.

1. Win the lotto .... with a ticket YOU purchased LOCALLY.

2. Inheritance.

3. Many years of hard work, sound financial wisdom, and a bit of luck.

Any other way to make that much money is not likely to be legal, and very likely to not work at all.

That being said, if you're content to break the law anyway, there are easier and safer ways to make that money than sending a fortune of your own money to some stranger overseas.

-Restil

Re:your view of morality is logically incoherent

[jvkjvk]

if you leave a stack of $20s out, you are thoughtless. you have no intent. therefore, you have committed no crime. meanwhile, if you walk into an open door and take the stack of $20s, you have a clear intent to commit a transgressive act and relieve someone else of something valuable which is not yours. you, and you alone, are culpable for what you have done

the magic concept?

intent

intent underlies all readings of morality in all cultures, for clear and obvious reasons of logical and philosophical coherence on the question of right and wrong

Now try to apply that to this case, please.

The scammer intended to scam the victim. Ok. Criminal intent.

The woman intented to give money to the scammer. Ok. Stupid intent.

There is "blame" enough to go around for both parties. Yet we only jail the scammer. Why? Intent.

Both are responsible for their respective actions, only one set of actions is criminal.

intent underlies all readings of morality in all cultures, for clear and obvious reasons of logical and philosophical coherence on the question of right and wrong

Yeah, I wish you would get a little logical and philosophical coherence to your arguments. This is nice and all but your little diversion here has really nothing to do with your original assertion that the woman bears no responsibility. Nor does it actually respond to the parent post.

You cannot assert that "Intent" is the only thing that bears looking at when we talk about "Responsibility" or "Fault". This is simply incorrect and this whole post is nothing more than a slick attempt to assert just that fallacy.

She's bad-stupid, and this is why:

[blind biker]

For more than two years, Spears sent tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars. Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.

Get it? EVERYONE was telling her it's a scam, and she decided, again and again, not to listen to them. It wasn't a one-time decision, but a repeated one.

I was going to feel sorry for her, but it turns out she was way too in love with their own ignorance and stupidity. It's wrong that she basically destroyed the financial security of her husband as well.

Re:She's bad-stupid, and this is why:

[RAMMS EIN]

``It's wrong that she basically destroyed the financial security of her husband as well.''

Exactly. If everybody tells you it's a scam, the very least you can do is have the decency not to throw money that isn't yours at it!

Re:She's bad-stupid, and this is why:

[drxenos]

I was going to feel sorry for her, but she whined in the article it would take her TWO years to recouple her loses. Just two years to earn back 1/2 a million.

Re:She's bad-stupid, and this is why:

[raynet]

No no no, when in doubt, use someone else's money, that way you wont get burned yourself.

sooo close

[regular_gonzalez]

Sure it seems like a tragedy now, but my gut feeling is that if she had sent one more payment, those millions would be in her bank account at this very moment. The same guy contacted me and I'm certain that with one or two more payments I will soon be rich beyond my wildest dreams. Remember kids, quitters never win and winners never quit.

Re:sooo close

[enigma9]

Remember kids, quitters never win and winners never quit.

But those who never wind AND never quit are idiots.

Re:sooo close

[ThanatosMinor]

Remember kids, quitters never win and winners never quit.

Yeah, but those who never win AND never quit are idiots.

Re:sooo close

[gacl]

Remember kids, quitters never win and winners never quit.

Or at least that's what George W. told her in that letter he sent her.

close to home here

[thenewguy001]

I've actually known this to happen to someone I know, and yep, it was his wife. And yep, they're now divorced. Wiped out his joint retirement funds as well, plus he now owes taxes on the amount withdrawn from the tax exempt retirement savings. I've never actually met her, but people that have said they always thought she was a nut. Total cost I'm told is close to half a million dollars. And no, it's not the same couple in the article.

This is how we get out of debt!

[zach_the_lizard]

"The scammers ran Spears through the whole program. They said President Bush and FBI Director "Robert Muller" (their spelling) were in on the deal and needed her help."

And all you people doubted our President's intelligence! He's opening additional revenue streams to get us out of debt.

I can only hope and pray that Obama, having African blood and thus being more closely related to our Nigerian friends, will be able to expand this source of government revenue.

Re:This is how we get out of debt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Jesus, how did this get modded 'insightful'? Should clearly be modded funny!!

I really do wonder about the state of /. these days.

Re:This is how we get out of debt!

[Killjoy_NL]

insightful is the funny+karma these days :)

I blame her husband

[Locke2005]

I don't even keep a joint checking account with my wife... why the hell would I allow her access to my retirement savings? I'm also not clear on how she managed to remortgage the house without her husband's signature.

Re:I blame her husband

[LunaticTippy]

You are probably younger than this couple. It was customary for people in my parents generation to have everything be joint accounts. Me? I won't ever marry, not even on a dare. Girlfriends don't get a housekey for many months. Nothing is ever joint. Yes, in a way it is sad!

Re:I blame her husband

[boredhacker]

Me? I won't ever marry, not even on a dare. Girlfriends don't get a housekey for many months. Nothing is ever joint. Yes, in a way it is sad!

Some people think that there are things in this world which are more important than money... a couple of them being trust and love. I think if and when you figure this out you will be a lot better off.

Re:I blame her husband

[LunaticTippy]

It's funny, I am not a materialistic person. I don't particularly care about being rich or having status symbols. I think because I don't care about these things I don't want to attract sex partners that care about these things. If a woman absolutely needs to have a joint checking account with me I know from experience what she is ultimately after. If marriage is her prime concern then my friends marriages and statistics tell me that an acrimonious divorce is probable!

My policy has given me many satisfying relationships over the years, one of which is nearing its 10 year anniversary. And I never have to worry if she is with me for the money.

Re:I blame her husband

[boredhacker]

I hear ya... I'm very much the same way actually; deliberate, conservative... idk what you want to call it. It just seems to further emphasize the point... things like love, trust, health, happiness, etc are SO much more important that we tend to play our cards even closer in that respect.

Re:I blame her husband

[owlstead]

"I don't even keep a joint checking account with my wife... why the hell would I allow her access to my retirement savings?"

Because in old style marriages the husband does the work and the wife stays at home to do the work there (as well as in the neighborhood, she seems to have been pretty active). Even though she does not make money, shouldn't she have access to the savings in such a case?

"I'm also not clear on how she managed to remortgage the house without her husband's signature."

Well, maybe it was hers for starters. Maybe she fooled her husband, pretty easy to do if one can only communicate through written word and hand gestures. Or maybe he did set the signature (it doesn't say he didn't, and although it says that the family warned her, this could easily exclude her husband).

Re:I blame her husband

[JediTrainer]

I don't even keep a joint checking account with my wife... why the hell would I allow her access to my retirement savings?

I do. But then again, my wife and I do this neat thing called "communication" before we make any major changes/withdrawals. You should try it sometime.

Re:I blame her husband

[sesshomaru]

Sadly, when you are a homeless guy living out of a shopping cart, and your ex is off spending your money with her new beau, trust and love is less comforting than you'd think.

As long as poverty leads to homelessness and an early death, nothing is more important than moeny. Nothing.

Re:Spears Eh?

[randyest]

RTFA: it explicitly points out that the answer to your query is no.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Paralizer]

This can also be applied to the stock market.

"They (the small time investors) are so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of *investing* money in hopes the false promises (of selling really high) will turn out to be real."

How?

[AmeerCB]

Ok, think about these quotes from the article for a moment:

She wiped out her husbandâ(TM)s retirement account, mortgaged the house and took a lien out on the family car. Both were already paid for.

Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold.

Firstly, you would think her husband would have stopped her if she was screwing with his retirement. Granted, I've never been married, so I don't know.

Secondly, it'll take her "at least three to four years to dig out of the debt..." This is a pretty good indication of her money skills that she thinks she can dig out of $400k of debt in 3-4 years.

Re:How?

[sesshomaru]

Her husband is now severely disabled, so that might be why. Or it may turn out that other than being a fantasist, she's actually good with money. So, he let her handle the money for years until her delusions became a problem.

Seriously, I know women who believe in Ouija Boards and Astrology and some of them are pretty hot... never let them control your finances though!

Re:How?

[stdarg]

Secondly, it'll take her "at least three to four years to dig out of the debt..." This is a pretty good indication of her money skills that she thinks she can dig out of $400k of debt in 3-4 years.

The article said she spend her husband's retirement money, so not all of the $400k is debt. Also, maybe declaring bankruptcy would wipe out a lot of the debt.

Re:Maybe he didn't hear about it yet...

[tetsu96]

... being deaf and all.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Kamokazi]

No, the difference is that Nigerian scams never payout. Casinos always have a chance to pay out. And, in many US states, lottery and casino money often go to some of the better causes, like education.

Also, remember you don't have to give your money to either of them. Stupid people will always find stupid ways to waste their money. Nothing you can do will protect them.

manslaughter. murder.

[circletimessquare]

the vast majority of legal codes in all world societies throughout all time periods of human history understands the difference in those concepts

you don't

you think intent is a "strawman"

you fail. hard

Re:manslaughter. murder.

[LordKronos]

Intent is a difference between manslaughter and murder, but in both cases, you are GUILTY!!!! That means you carry the responsibility and the blame. So, even if your example did have anything to do with what "Free the Cowards" was saying, I'm not sure what your point was.

However, the reason it was a straw man was because you were talking about a person committing a crime and discussing whether or not they did it intentionally or accidentally. "Free the Cowards" was talking about someone intentionally allowing herself to be victimized. If you can't see that those are 2 completely different things, or if you can't see how that is exactly what the term straw man refers to, then it is you who "fail. hard"

PS. I'm sick of that stupid "fail" meme. Die already.

Bank CEO refused transfer

[enbody]

I know a bank CEO who refused to transfer money for a Nigerian scam, and the woman accuses him of standing in the way of her making millions. A variety of people have spoken with her, but she is adamant. This standoff has existed for weeks. I don't know the final status.

"You can fool some of the people all the time ..."

Re:Bank CEO refused transfer

[Rastl]

I work for a bank but not anywhere near the money, thank goodness. During our annual compliance training there's a section on this kind of thing. We're supposed to try to dissuade the person but if they persist they need to physically sign a form that they're taking out the money against the advice of the bank.

So while we can't refuse to give a person their money (assuming they haven't been declared incompetent) we can cover our own butts from future lawsuits by showing that the person was warned.

Seems to me this person just didn't believe anyone. You can't reason with people like that. My money's on her falling for some other scam within the next five years. Especially since she thinks she can recoup her losses in under five years.

Anyone up for the 'Recover your money from Nigerian scammers' scam? Or has that been done?

Re:Bank CEO refused transfer

[arthurpaliden]

It has been done. I believe there is a Internet company already that you can hire that specializes in this sort of cash recovery. However, I don't seem to recall where I saw this. It too was reported as a scam.

Re:Bank CEO refused transfer

[immcintosh]

While the bank can't refuse to give you your money, could they simply refuse to transfer it to certain other third parties? In other words, could they say, "Sure, take your money, but we won't be sending it to that recipient." I'm curious.

Re:Bank CEO refused transfer

[EvolutionsPeak]

It is sad that we live with a legal system where this kind of ass covering is necessary.

Re:Bank CEO refused transfer

[Reservoir Penguin]

I understand why the bank was doing, but it is still a scary concept that some bank thinks they know better what I should do with my money that I temporarily put in their box.

Re:Bank CEO refused transfer

[Luthair]

Respond telling them you'd be happy to help, but first you need $X so you can retrieve the money from a your broker? :)

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[MoonBuggy]

No, there is a major difference - the Nigerians lie to you, the casinos don't.

That's basically what defines a scam, in my opinion. If you can take people at their word then you have nobody to blame but yourself for the outcome. If you can't then it becomes a whole different issue - sure, this woman was a greedy moron and I don't pity her, but the fact remains that she was lied to, the only difference is these scammers happened to be bad liars and she fell for it anyway. The only way that a lot of scams work, especially those that prey on people's good nature rather than greed, can work is by outright lying.

The adage "You can't cheat an honest man" pretty much holds if the truth is told; if you can convince people to invest in your pyramid scheme without lying to them (which, unfortunately, probably isn't that hard) then maybe they should have taken a closer look at the financial viability of what they were putting their money into. If, however, you say there's a guaranteed return rate then they should be able to take you at your word on that and have their money returned if it fails.

Remortgaged the house?

[NotNormallyNormal]

I'm surprised that the bank didn't step in at the point and not lend her the money. Several times I've gotten a mortgage or line of credit the bank always wants to know why... "Why do you need to mortgage your house again?" should have been the question and the bank, upon hearing her answer (I can't imagine she would lie since she seems pretty gullible) should have been "No ma'am, I'm sorry but we cannot lend you the money for that." I'm sure there are some unscrupulous banks but - come on - the bank is not likely to see its money after she declares bankruptcy!

Re:Remortgaged the house?

[sesshomaru]

"No ma'am, I'm sorry but we cannot lend you the money for that." I'm sure there are some unscrupulous banks but - come on - the bank is not likely to see its money after she declares bankruptcy!

Oh, they see their money right away after they've securitized the loan into a credit deriviative and sold it on the international investment market. Then it is the next sucker's problem.

Re:Remortgaged the house?

[jcnnghm]

I'm surprised that the bank didn't step in at the point and not lend her the money. Several times I've gotten a mortgage or line of credit the bank always wants to know why... "Why do you need to mortgage your house again?" should have been the question and the bank, upon hearing her answer (I can't imagine she would lie since she seems pretty gullible) should have been "No ma'am, I'm sorry but we cannot lend you the money for that." I'm sure there are some unscrupulous banks but - come on - the bank is not likely to see its money after she declares bankruptcy!

You're right about that, the bank won't see it's money again. But it will seize her house.

Tattooed

[Jabbrwokk]

This scammer got tattooed, all right.

Re:Tattooed

[religious freak]

Wow. That's the first one where, after reading, I feel sorry for the scammer.

Wow

[ZekoMal]

And this just proves it; when we protect stupid people, they don't die off, they breed more, and we get people that actually fall for scams.

More so, they fall for a scam this bad. The spelling is poor, the requests are pathetic, and she fell for it. She was willing to ruin the life of her husband for this, too; in the small chance that she was randomly selected by people she never knew to get tons of money.

She's not some 'helpless victim', either. If someone gets raped, that is a helpless victim. If the raped one went with the rapist, despite everybody they knew telling them not to, and ruined their loved ones life just to go with the rapist in case the rapist might actually have a 'magic penis', well, then no pity for them either.

She's a spokeswoman for stupidity. After this scam has been out for years, has been highlighted by news channels, has been made into a common joke, she has no excuse for this madness. She took out everyone around her for it. If anything, I feel bad for her husband; he lost his retirement money because -she- was greedy.

She was so greedy, she failed to even realize how ridiculous it is that the FBI and Bush would be relying on her sending money to Nigerians to save the day; it doesn't even go along with the same premise of her getting money out of this!

This woman is so gullible, she probably would jump off a cliff if someone said she would just bounce off the ground like a bouncy ball, with no damage or pain.

Some people you can't help

[noldrin]

I have a customer who has now bought his "anti virus" twice from the malware program infecting his computer and still insists that his computer shouldn't be having any problems and refuses to buy our anti-virus software since he has "already paid for one"

Re:Some people you can't help

[Zebano]

Empirical evidence of people being this stupid does nothing but depress me.

life is like a box of chocolates

[circletimessquare]

you never know what you are going to get

Re:life is like a box of chocolates

[Hatta]

But when everyone else in the fucking world tells you that chocolate's actually a turd, you don't have anyone to blame but yourself when you choose to eat that chocolate and it's actually a turd.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Falstius]

Her thought process is exactly the same as a gambling addict. The ethics of casino's and Nigerian scammers are different, but she belongs at Gamblers Anonymous.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[2nd Post!]

Except, unlike a Nigerian scam, you CAN make money in the stock market or a casino. In a casino the odds are defined such that you will likely lose half of anything you bet. In the stock market the odds are defined such that you will likely see a modest 8% gain per year if you play the market for 10 years straight without investing more money into it.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[fireman sam]

Actually, there are quite a few people who get big payouts from the scammers. See http://www.419eater.com/

But, my point was that the scammers and the casinos bait and hook their victims with promises of big payouts to keep you giving them money. The majority of people will see the gamble and not take the risk. Others like the one in the article, or the man in this article: http://www.onlinecasinoadvisory.com/casino-news/land/casino-loses-collection-case-1939.htm take the bait and keep pumping the money in.

From the linked article: "In March 2000 he began a bad run at blackjack during which he lost over $3.5 million in one night."

Just because casinos show you the rules beforehand, they will drain you as fast (if not faster) than the scammers could.

If she spends here money on a scam

[32771]

I'm sure she would spend $10 on that:

http://www.despair.com/mis24x30prin.html

Re:If she spends here money on a scam

[immcintosh]

I'm sure she already owns this one.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[kramulous]

No one ever won by sending money to a Nigerian.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe there is a Nigerian scammer out there that is just as stupid as the people sending the money. The odds of finding such scammer similar to winning everything you ever bet in a casino?

Re:In other news

[cthulu_mt]

Radio 2 I think.

One Word

[twmcneil]

Greed.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[powerlord]

No one ever won by sending money to a Nigerian.

True ... but sometimes they can win and get the Nigerian to send THEM the money (or at least lots of entertainment of intangible value) http://www.419eater.com/.

lets follow your thought to the logical conclusion

[circletimessquare]

if the woman had zero intent to do wrong, then she can be guilty guilty guilty!... and deserve no punishment. according yo your supposition that intent equates to level punishment, right?

meanwhile, the scammers had every intent to do wrong, therefore they deserve real punishment, according to your supposition

therefore, in your scenario, the woman get sno punishment, the scammers get real punishment, and all the res tis pointless verbiage. ok, the woman is guilty, she's reposnible, she's an albatross, whatever. doesn't matter what you clal her. the point is she doesn't get punished, in your eyes, and the scammers do, which is all that is important. the rest is verbiage

Re:dude

[Free the Cowards]

You're the one who seems confused here.

There are three utterly separate concepts at play here, and you seem insistent for reasons I cannot comprehend to squish them all into a single idea:

1. Moral rightness
2. Legal rightness
3. Fault

Any combination of these three ideas can be found in real life. As there are eight different combinations I'm not going to bother coming up with examples of all of them, but it should be pretty clear that they can happen.

Note that I am not talking about punishment, or anything of the sort. The scammers should be punished, end of story. But that doesn't change the fact that it was this woman's own damned fault for being such an idiot that she got scammed. That doesn't mean I think that she deserves it or that she should be punished or anything like that. Please, if you are going to argue, argue based on what I actually say and not these crazy ideas you imagine I believe.

Re:In other news

[zen_la]

so at 1pm then?

Here is step 4.

[whoever57]

4. ... Divorce husband and move away.

Re:Here is step 4.

[PeelBoy]

Taking half of whatever remained of his in the process.

Re:Here is step 4.

[INowRegretThesePosts]

Sad but true. In an effort to fight misogynist sexism, certain laws have become misandrist. For example, here in Brasil, it requires little evidence to send a man to jail if he is accused of rape. An angry girlfriend, for example, can have sex with the man, then go to the police, have an exam that shows they indeed had sex, and based on this have him arrested for rape (not necessary to prove the sex was forced). An impoverished man will then linger in the jail for months or years, waiting for the public attorney. And remember what happens to inmates accused of rape.

Misandry is wrong, just like racism against whites (or, in these times of euphemism and political correctness, "affirmative action") is wrong and probably unconstitutional in many countries.

Re:Here is step 4.

[mrsquid0]

> Taking half of whatever remained of his in the process.

The frightening part is that this is probably what would happen if she divorced him.

LOL, at the related article:

[Joe Snipe]

Maybe she works for microsoft

OMFG

[MrRegis]

There are girls on the internet?!!? /sarcasm

Poor Britney

[CODiNE]

Clearly madness really does run in the Spears family.

Come on

[slashdotlurker]

Lay off the poor woman, will you ?

She just needed some shoes. Is she going to get them for free from Carrie Bradshaw ?

Re:In other news

[Grendel_Prime]

OK so it's not really free, but if you think about it all that "free money" requires is an ISP, a nigerian bank account, plus the forged documents from government officials. It might cost like $100 USD, but when the payoff is this big, it's kinda worth it.

Re:lots of verbiage

[Free the Cowards]

Your approach is a reasonable one. However I don't like it because there is essentially nothing that I can personally do to reduce the number of scammers in the world.

This is why I talk about "fault" the way I do. While I cannot personally reduce the number of scammers in the world, I can reduce my likelihood of being scammed.

The best way to do this is to watch other people get scammed and learn from their experience. "Fault" is basically a pithy way of saying that this woman had the opportunity to avoid her fate but chose not to take it. If I am in a similar situation, I can learn from her experience and avoid the scam.

Consider a hypothetical situation where a person got scammed and was not at fault in any way. In that case the lack of fault has a very different meaning for how I can learn from his experience.

If you want to look at things differently then be my guest. But please don't go off talking about nonexistent "logical contradictions" in my thinking just because you can't seem to grasp what I'm talking about.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[LandDolphin]

That's why you call the Lottery a "Stupid Tax"

Nigerian scam 'victims' are criminals themselves

[OnanTheBarbarian]

Blaming the victim in this case is perfectly legitimate. Most long cons like this involve an appeal to the element of criminality on the part of the victim. Why would this woman think that she is entitled to pull millions of dollars worth of free money out of Africa?

The basic Nigerian scam depicts a corrupt official stealing money who 'needs your help'. To fall for it isn't just stupid, it's venal.

Would someone please post...

[ptelligence]

her e-mail address.

NOT Stupid

[Dave Tucker Online]

Everybody is saying this woman is stupid. That may not be the problem. She may be otherwise intelligent, but she is greedy, and that overrides her reasoning.

This woman wanted money she didn't earn, and got what she deserved.

Re:NOT Stupid

[uberjack]

Greed and stupidity went hand-in-hand on this one. Greed is not always enough to completely bankrupt someone - if anything, greedy people don't give up everything they have in the hopes that they will eventually get something in return. She _is_ stupid, and greedy. At her age, greed especially enhances her stupidity (Stupid +10), as I can't imagine what she'd do with all her money in the time she's got left, if the scam really _had been_ legitimate.

Re:NOT Stupid

[evanbd]

Stupid, but otherwise intelligent, is still stupid.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[megamerican]

No one ever won by sending money to a Nigerian.

The person who got the $400k from that woman would tend to disagree with you.

I would also say that the average slashdot reader has also benefitted from this by a large boost to their self-esteem. It always feels good to know you are at least not that stupid. It is hard to put a price tag on that :)

Indeed

[tthomas48]

I love the fact that no one points out that even if she isn't the most gullible person on earth, her morals are still shockingly lacking. She's ready to help funnel millions out of a poor African country. Money that is almost surely going to be used for nefarious purposes. Kind of makes illegally selling arms to African nations seem moral.

Oblig quote from Satchmo

[yorgo]

From TFA: Everyone she knew, including law enforcement officials, her family and bank officials, told her to stop, that it was all a scam. She persisted.

"There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em." - Louis Armstrong

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Yarcofin]

Actually I saw a guy who made $20 USD (and a birthday card) off of a Nigerian scammer to try and convince him the deal was for real, I think it was on 419eater.com

Re:lets follow your thought to the logical conclus

[WillDraven]

therefore, in your scenario, the woman get sno punishment, the scammers get real punishment, and all the res tis pointless verbiage. ok, the woman is guilty, she's reposnible, she's an albatross, whatever. doesn't matter what you clal her. the point is she doesn't get punished, in your eyes, and the scammers do, which is all that is important. the rest is verbiage

I think all this talk of Nigerian email scams is affecting you...

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[randyest]

You seriously think it's anything other than zero?

Re:Another difference

[91degrees]

True. Casinos could put big signs all over the place saying "The odds are against you and you will probably lose", and I bet they'd still rake in a profit.

Short of the long

[krray]

I was curious of not so much reading the story (I didn't :), but wanted to know what a dumb ass really looks like. Perhaps this will save you some trouble: dumb ass

Re:Short of the long

[qor]

OH MY $DEITY! She looks like my mother-in-law... *shudders*

Talk to parents?

[dvh.tosomja]

Here is my situation. I'm 26 year old programmer, my parents are average PC/internet users, both about 50 years old. Yet, I have never talk to them about security, I mean certificates, check url address, scam, nigerian letters, loteries, fraudulent js pages, hoaxes, etc... I's kinda embrassing, just like parent to teenager talk about sex, we never talked about that. I just hope they are enought smart to not send their money to anybody.

Oblig W.C. Fields

[seven of five]

"You can't cheat an honest man; never give s sucker an even break or wise up a chump."

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[rugatero]

Maybe there is a Nigerian scammer out there that is just as stupid as the people sending the money.

Dear Prince Nbumbu,

I am willing to assist you in transferring the sum of $20m in return for 10%, and will forward the $400,000 advance to you in the coming week. In order to progress this transaction I first need you to wire me $100,000 in processing fees. Further details to follow.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[ab0mb88]

Just like the casino business, profile your audience and target the easiest marks. I would start with this list:
http://www.bdb.co.za/shackle/articles/scammers.htm

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[randyest]

What? The person who got the $400k from that woman didn't "send money to a Nigerian." That person is a Nigerian, to whom the dumb woman sent $400k.

No, no, no...

[denzacar]

Not exiled. Deported. To Nigeria.

Re:No, no, no...

[mgcarley]

She'd probably be killed.

On another point, why not just like, I don't know, Google the facts? Go to the Central Bank of Nigeria's website: it says to watch out for scammers, and also it's not located in Lagos, but Abuja.

For Pete's sake, I mean, in a way, I feel sorry that she and her husband are now financially in the shit, but seriously, who trusts anyone that blindly as to just send them cash without checking anything?

I've seen some of the "contracts" that these guys send out: I could do a better job in MS Paint using a nipple mouse (touch point... whatever).

Re:No, no, no...

[denzacar]

I could do a better job in MS Paint using a nipple mouse (touch point... whatever).

Its slashdot... its all informal here. Very informal.
http://www.xkcd.com/243/

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Prof.Phreak]

...so desperate to recoup their losses with the big payout, they decend into a vicious cycle of *betting* money in hopes the false promises...

Eh, just like the stock market :-)

Re:lots of verbiage

[Nick Ives]

if we are waging a war on this activity, who do we target, who do we punish?

I think the point being made is that if you're stupid enough to do something like send $400,000 to a foreigner you've never met then you share some of the blame if it turns out to be a scam. It's gross negligence on your part if you do something like that. It isn't about minimising the responsibility of the scammer, of course we still punish them but at the same time we should acknowledge that this woman is a complete tool and deserves no sympathy.

It's like if you were to go out and leave your front door unlocked. Sure, you didn't steal your stuff but you made it very easy for other people to do it and in such a case your insurance wouldn't pay out because of your negligence.

Also, depending on the scam, she may actually deserve to go to prison in this case because 419 scammers often try to hook victims by asking them for help smuggling stolen money out of the country. It's not clear to me if that's what happened here but if that was the case then she deserves jail time.

She's voting for Palin in 2012, isn't she?

[jollyreaper]

Downmod me all you want fuckers, you know she's gonna do it!

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[randyest]

I'm sure there's a Nigerian scammer out there who is as dumb as this lady. Problem is, he almost certainly doesn't have any money to be scammed out of. I mean you might be able to get one to hang a laptop from his penis or pose with a fish while wearing a bra (they're both in there somewhere) but a financial gain seems very unlikely.

In contrast, I've been to casinos about 4 times, and I'm up about $200 overall. That's not all that unusual.

Re:Spears Eh?

[boredhacker]

Forget TFA... the comment just above points out the same thing. Not only do people skip reading the article, they skip reading the comments too! LOL

Re:Spears Eh?

[WiiVault]

Whoops, funny enough I did read it but didn't click the links. Oh well!

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[OrangeTide]

Casios pay out, just not in a statistically favorable ratio. Con artists never ever pay out. There is a big difference between a 1:10000 chance of winning big and a 0 chance.

leave her alone

[slashdotmsiriv]

Leave Janella alone! (crying and shouting)

You can't con an honest man

[jjohnson]

This is what's meant by the saying "you can't con an honest man." It was her greed that drove her deeper and deeper into the scam, greed to get $26 million she did nothing to earn, $26 million that didn't and shouldn't belong to her even if it did exist.

Kudos to her for publicizing her story as a warning to others, but jeers for the basic lack of honesty that got her in trouble in the first place.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[randyest]

That may be so, but that doesn't make casinos as much of a scam as Nigerian scams.

The conclusion could also easily apply to religion

[muuh-gnu]

>People become obsessed with the scam. They are so desperate to recoup their losses with
>the big payout, they descend into a vicious cycle of sending money in hopes the false
>promises will turn out to be real.

The emotional trap these people are caught in immediately reminded me of religion. I'm sure many religious people, at least the more intelligent ones, have at some point in their religious lives thought about just getting out of the scam, but found it, as they get older, increasingly difficult to do so because all those years (decades) they've wasted time on religion (sunk costs) may result in momumental losses (life without a meaning) if they would simply give it up at a later point in their lives. So, like Spears, they just decide to stay in the cycle in hopes all they've imagined or being told, one day will turn to be true and that the "big payout" in the heavens will come.

this is an excellent point

[circletimessquare]

people have two, i guess you could say, prejudices, when it comes to crime

some people automatically blame themselves, some people automatically blame someone else, regardless of who is to actually blame

you can see this play out in all sorts of crimes: say a guy gets drunk and gets in a car accident. as he is being led away by the police, he is screaming at the driver of the car he hit for being a moron. this guy's prejudice is that whenever something goes wrong, its someone else's fault, never his

now let's talk about a domestic beating situation, where the guy comes home, beats the wife senseless for not cooking the pot roast enough, then goes to bed. the wife blames herself, for not cooking the pot roast enough. this woman's prejudice is that whenever something goes wrong, it is her fault, never someone else's

both of these prejudice are alive and well on questions of accountability, blame, morality, etc., on all sorts of events in this world, from small daily snafus to major international events

but these prejudices about who is to blame can often be far off from a logically valid analysis of blame, because they come from a preconcieved notion of how to apportion blame, which can oftentimes stray far from logic and reason

so i understand your attitude, and your approach, but you really have just blame the criminal, the one who commits the transgressive act. yes, you are often in a helpless situation, not able to do anything about a crime except change your own behavior. but that's not morally valid. learning to blame yourself for more than you are actually accountable for is not only morally unsound, it is dangerous to you psychologically. when you blame yourself fro crimes you are the vicitm in, you are doing damage to your psyche

Re:this is an excellent point

[Free the Cowards]

Again, I don't understand what you're getting at. I do blame the criminal. But when the victim has brought it upon themselves, I also blame the victim.

If I ever get sucked into an e-mail scam (which I don't ever plan on doing) then you can bet that I will blame the scammer who ripped me off. But I will also blame myself for being an idiot.

If I am the victim of a crime and it really is my fault, then it's only logical to blame myself. It seems to me that it would be far more damaging to my psyche to have an attitude that the victim is never at fault and therefore that I can never do anything to avoid being a victim of another crime in the future.

Re:this is an excellent point

[cparker15]

A very simple hypothetical (and it involves cars!):

Joe Schmoe standing at the side of a busy superhighway (an Interstate, for example). Joe wants to get to a location on the other side of the highway. Joe decides to try to cross the highway, despite cars zooming past where he's standing at 75 mph. Joe starts walking, knowing what the consequences could be, and Joe becomes roadkill.

Joe's a victim, because he died as a result. However, Joe's also at fault, because he acted in a way that caused the situation that led to him being the victim. Joe Schmoe obviously was not suicidal. That was not his intent. His intent was to continue living and do whatever it was he was going to do on the opposite side of the highway.

Now, there is a fundamental difference between this hypothetical and what happened to the victim of the Nigerian scam: the intent of the other party. In Joe's scenario, the driver that killed him did not intend to do so. In the Nigerian scam, the scammer intended to rip the woman off. However, the behavior of both victims is similar. Both of the victims are responsible for what happened. The difference is that the driver is not also responsible, whereas the scammer is. That said, neither victim actually did anything wrong, so they can't/shouldn't be punished. However, they also don't deserve sympathy, for they wouldn't have become victims if they didn't act the way they did, enabling their own misfortune.

Similarly, if you wave your hand smelling of rodent in front of a hungry snake, it's your own damn fault if you get bit.

The topic behind this comment thread doesn't concern morality or legality. It's about personality responsibility and “common sense”.

Re:this is an excellent point

[amirulbahr]

Seems to me you are talking about the concept of self-guilt here. Honestly, I think you two are talking about completely different things. I agree with you both, except I don't agree with circletimesquare that FTC has some sort of logical contradiction in his point. Obviously it would be best for the woman to accept what has happened and move on, without beating herself up about it for the rest of her life. Hopefully she learns from the experience, something a bit more general than "beware of Nigerian scammers".

Re:Spears Eh?

[boredhacker]

He he... Ya, I like to listen to myself talk just as much as the next guy; I can't blame you. Just thought it was funny. Look at the bright side... at least you didn't send $400k to a Nigerian prince ;-)

3-4 years to recover

[webax]

"Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold."

Call me amoral, but if she makes enough money that it only takes 3-4 years to get out of $400,000 in debt, I don't feel bad for her.

I'm sure there are people blowing a couple year-s salaries in Vegas every day... they only have slightly better odds then her at getting money and are just as gullible.

Re:lets follow your thought to the logical conclus

[Fjandr]

You seem to be stuck on the idea that any of this is about punishment. It's a theme that pops up in several of your posts here, while the people replying to you don't even mention punishment.

Punishment has nothing to do with blame and vice versa, rendering all your arguments about who should be punished completely moot. It doesn't matter who should be punished, since that has absolutely nothing to do with what people (other than you) are talking about in this thread.

I don't understand.

[RomulusNR]

Look, I don't get it.

I'm not particularly ambitious, corporate-ladder wise, but I make decent money IMO.

But I'm not insanely stupid with my money, either.

Yet I don't have $400,000 to blow.

If I did, I sure as fuck wouldn't give it to MR AKELE MBUMBA OF NIGERIA.

What I don't understand is: How does someone so stupid have so much money?

Anyone?

Re:I don't understand.

[JSBiff]

". . . her husband's retirement account. . ."

Sounds like, while it was legally 'her' money by virtue of the marriage, she wasn't necessarily the one who worked her whole life to build up that nest egg.

Still, I do feel sorry for her, even if she was kind of dumb, and for her husband (if he's still alive; I can't imagine he's still alive and allowed her to just empty their accounts; maybe he was brain damaged in an accident or otherwise out of the picture).

Re:I don't understand.

[sesshomaru]

Well, a couple of possibilities:

1. The woman is old, when she was young she might have been smart as a tack, but now her mind is going. Senile dementia, early stage alzheimers or something else. One of the scariest things I contemplate as I age is that I'll probably still be alive as my brain starts to turn to mush. I think it's why Hunter S. Thompson offed himself, actually.

2. Her severely disabled husband, before he got to be severly disabled, made the money and invested it wisely. Possibly she was a hot little number when she was young, and when he was healthy he kept a leash on her. Now he's old and more decrepit than she, and she ends up in charge of the household.

There's an old song, "Hope I die before I get old."

Re:I don't understand.

[thebigbluecheez]

She doesn't.

Mr MBUMBA does.

Re:I don't understand.

[Anonymous Coward]

She didn't have $400K to blow either. She mortgaged her home, depleted their retirement savings, and took a lien on their car.

$400K is not a lot when you're talking about net worth.

Re:I don't understand.

[codeButcher]

What I don't understand is: How does someone so stupid have so much money?

I think that, in general, the more intelligent people are, the more they understand the impact their actions now may have in the long term (years from now). You may not have a lot of cash laying around, but you may have invested most of it in things that will be beneficial in the long(er) term: education, a car, a house, retirement savings, etc.

There's a Wikipedia article on Deferred gratification.

Re:I don't understand.

[CodeBuster]

How does someone so stupid have so much money?

The house, the car, and the retirement account all presumably belonged to the husband who is himself an idiot for allowing his gullible wife to have access to the finances. In answer to your question, the amount of money that one is able to accumulate, both in the United States and elsewhere in the world, appears to more closely track dishonesty, chutzpah, and greed than it does intelligence. Unfortunately, being smart does not guarantee wealth and sometimes it takes a less bright individual, who is able to take a wild risk without thinking too much about it, to make a fortune.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[RipSUp]

Well I think one Nigerian for sure won at this.

Re:The conclusion could also easily apply to relig

[Intrinsic]

Thats kind of a good point. I think it would just apply to people that are prone to obsession and take it to seriousley. Their are some people that pratice religion to make their lives better and dont subscribe to that big payoff thing. Some people like the stucture of religion because its hard for them to create their own.

Re:Another difference

[DrgnDancer]

Vegas casinos do just this, though they make it seem like a good thing. "99.9%" payout signs are all over the place in Vegas. This tells anyone with a reasonable understanding of statistics that more people lose than win. The problem is everyone think that they are a little smarter/luckier than average, and the odd are awfully close...

Personally when I go to the casino I treat it as an entertainment expense. I have x dollars to lose on the games, just like if it were an arcade. In the unlikely event that I win more than I lose it's lagniappe.

What is it with Nigeria and scams anyway?

[kagyakusha]

When I used to work for a certain international courier company I was always trying to talk people out of sending packages to Nigeria... It was usually PS2s that they were convinced they would get paid for AFTERWARDS... and they would have the Nigerian person's shipping account to send it on -- and of course, the second it was shipped, the Nigerian person's account would prove to have a cancelled credit card and a fake name. :/ Not a single one of those people EVER believed me that they were being scammed no matter how hard I tried to convince them. People are so willfully ignorant sometimes! And GREEDY! "OMG! I'll get $$? SIGN ME UP!"

no, you won't blame yourself for being an idiot

[circletimessquare]

why? because you aren't an idiot

an idiot is an idiot. you have to understand the full ramifications of that

by definition, because they can't do the logic you just outlined above, they ar eincapable of engaging in the mechanisms of doing wrong other than being the one is done wrong to

stupidity is not evil. the mind that full well knows what it is doing wrong, and does it anyway, over a carefully planned and sustained period, deserved all accountability for the crime

meanwhile, if you insist on blaming the stupid, for being stupid, you're

1. not going to get any results. we're talking about the stupid again, right?
2. apportioning blame away from real evildoers onto their victims

all blame should go to the one who commits the trangression, and never the one who is transgressed, no matte rhow foolish they behave. this is the only point of view oyu can take and be morally coherent on the larger meaning of what it means to be responsible

you, by blaming the vicitm, ar ehelping to enable the criminal with the "but the devil made me do it" defense

Re:no, you won't blame yourself for being an idiot

[Free the Cowards]

I have been an idiot many times. I have made stupid mistakes which cost me a great deal of time and money. I blame myself as much as is appropriate for those mistakes.

One time my wallet was stolen by a pickpocket. Of course the pickpocket gets the blame for this. But so do I. I was stupid. I stood in a crowded area known for pickpocketing and did nothing to protect my wallet. Logical consequence of these actions: my wallet was no longer there. Because this was my fault (AND the pickpocket's fault) I knew that there were things I could do to protect myself in the future. I learned my lesson, and have not been a victim of pickpocketing since.

I'm not enabling anyone. You seem to continually ignore the fact that in the class of crimes under discussion, I am blaming both the victim and the criminal. If the victim took knowing steps which resulted in the crime, then they absolutely deserve blame. This is a separate issue from the question of whether or not to blame the criminal.

Blame is not a zero-sum game. It does not get divided in half when you spread it to two people.

Sometimes something bad happens and nobody is at fault.

Sometimes something bad happens and everybody involved is at fault.

Sometimes something bad happens and only some of the people involved are at fault.

By examining cases in which I could potentially be involved, looking at who is at fault, and seeing what those people could have done to avoid the situation, I am able to learn from other people's mistakes.

Saying that you must never blame the victim puts you in a situation where you can never take any action to reduce your chance of being a victim. Which is simply not how the world works. You can absolutely take actions which reduce your chances of being a victim of crime, and you should.

Re:no, you won't blame yourself for being an idiot

[joto]

While you make a good point, there's another reason to blame the victim here. The nigerian scam is basically asking you to participate in a money laundering scheme, for your own personal profit. Had it not been a scam, it would have been illegal. The "victims" deserve what they get, and in my opinion should be prosecuted for attempted money laundering as well.

Re:no, you won't blame yourself for being an idiot

[roman_mir]

dude, you don't get it, do you? While you are arguing about merits of ideas and such and you think that on the other side there is also some thought process going on beyond simple trolling, you are actually being trolled. Blatantly trolled by a very long time, quasi-professional troll, and you just don't get it.

Re:no, you won't blame yourself for being an idiot

[Darby]

One time my wallet was stolen by a pickpocket.

Just curious, did you feel it happening but it was too crowded to tell who did it, or was he that good that you didn't even notice it until you went for your wallet later?

Re:no, you won't blame yourself for being an idiot

[Free the Cowards]

He was the really good kind. I only discovered it missing when I went to pay for breakfast and discovered that I no longer had the means to pay for anything. In fact, I can only suppose that it was a pickpocket. Conceivably I could have simply lost it or something, although since I had it with me just before I got on a crowded subway and discovered it missing at breakfast right after I got off, the conclusion seems fairly obvious. Other than that it must have been on the subway, I have no idea who it was or when it happened.

Incredible!

[Anonymous Coward]

Incredible. Your posts are so well argued, so well thought out, so coherent and so well spelt. I almost forgot I was on Slashdot.

But, your lack of capitalization and irreverent and lacking use of punctuation robs your message of value. It's a crime but, I can't figure out who shoulders the blame. Is it you or me?

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Buck Fuddy]

That's why you call the Lottery a "Stupid Tax"

Partially correct. The lottery is a "tax" on people who are bad at math.

Re:I'll wager....

[toadlife]

An middle-aged white woman who is active in her christian church?

Not a chance.

Re:Wow

[zippthorne]

It's actually even worse than that. If the actions she *thought* she was taking were real, *she* would be committing a crime.

It's really, really, really hard to feel bad for someone who loses a lot of their own money while attempting launder money, steal from foreigners and foreign governments, and commit usury.

The real victim here is the husband.

Re:The conclusion could also easily apply to relig

[bluesangria]

>but found it, as they get older, increasingly difficult to do so because all those years (decades) they've wasted time on religion (sunk costs) may result in momumental losses (life without a meaning) if they would simply give it up at a later point in their lives.

Religion? Sounds like you are talking about World of Warcraft!

Well deserved

[rainer_d]

As mentioned in the comments, this women basically agreed to defraud some government of the money "held in an escrow account".
It's not like these guys stole her lottery-jackpot.
She had no problem taking part in an illegal transaction.

But some people really only seem to see the money and think "Heck, it could work".

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Introspective]

Well most intelligent people know that, but from this woman's point of view she was expecting a large payout. Just like a casino gives the impression of a large payout.

Too bad they didn't delcare her incompetent

[JSBiff]

If anyone in my family was going along with a scam like this, and I knew about it, and they wouldn't stop, I think I would go to a judge, explain the circumstances, ask for the judge to declare her mentally incompetent, and ask to be made her legal guardian, just to protect her from herself. Someone shouldn't be allowed to throw away the life savings of their spouse just because they are an imbecile.

typo

[cparker15]

err... that's “personal responsibility”

The amount of debt is not specified

[JSBiff]

Read the article again. The article says she *sent* 400,000 to the scammers. It never says she borrowed 400,000. In fact, it never mentions how much she borrowed at all, only that she sent 400k, and that two of the sources of that money were borrowed. I imagine that of that 400k, the bulk of it actually came from the retirement account she threw away. Maybe she borrowed 20k, or 50k, and the remainder was from the savings.

It may be entirely possible to pay off her debt in 3-4 years, because it's probably much less than 400k. It's also possible that she really is very much underestimating just how long it will take to pay off the debt. A few years ago I had some credit card debt I had to pay off. It took about a year and a half to pay off, and that was only a few thousand dollars.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Tom]

The only difference between the Nigerian scam and the casino scam, is the government IS involved in the casino scam and gets to share your money.

By far not the only difference. The most important difference is that at the casino you can walk out with more than you walked in with. The odds are against you, but it's possible.

I've yet to hear from someone actually getting the promised money in a 419 scam.

annoyance in numbers

[Khashishi]

there's more Christians

Clearly I am in the wrong business

[neuroxmurf]

Spears said it would take her at least three to four years to dig out of the debt she ran up in pursuit of the non-existent pot of Nigerian gold.

What I want to know is where in the hell does someone of her obvious intellect work that she can earn nearly half a million dollars over her expenses in three to four years!

And if she *is* earning that much, what does she need with another $20m anyway?

Re:Clearly I am in the wrong business

[mosb1000]

That's to pay back the loans she took out. She used her husband's retirement fund as well, I'd imagine that will take longer to replace.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Lobster Quadrille]

Even if you're lying, the point of "You can't cheat an honest man" is that the honest man isn't greedy and doesn't expect a bunch of money for little to no work.

An honest man does an honest day's work for a living, and doesn't expect, want, or attempt to get something he doesn't deserve. Scammers capitalize on greed.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Durindana]

well...

The scammers are easy marks too

[E 99]

See ebolamonkeyman.com and 419eater.com.

These scammers will try anything for a buck. My favorite one is where one of these guys told the Nigerian scammer that what he really needed was Nigerian hand-carved wooden replicas of cartoon characters for an extremely high mark-up and profit. Then when the first hand-carved samples came in, he sent back a photoshopped picture of the shipment with the explanation that a rare African hampster had gotten loose in the cargo hold and eaten holes in the figures, and new ones would have to be sent. He got a bunch of real nice hand-carved souvenirs out of that one.

Re:The scammers are easy marks too

[E 99]

Here's a nice little story on the scam-baiters.

Re:Mod parent !funny!

[Galactic Dominator]

Because someone with points found it funny.

Perhaps we should all run our modding through you first to make sure we're getting it right?

Or perhaps people can just spend their points as they see fit.

stuff

[caligula213]

I am Ministry of the Treasury of the Republic of America. My country has had crisis that has caused the need for large transfer of funds of 800 billion dollars US. If you would assist me in this transfer, it would be most profitable to you. Please reply with all of your bank account, IRA and college fund account numbers and those of your children and grandchildren to wallstreetbailout@treasury.gov so that we may transfer your commission for this transaction. After I receive that information, I will respond with detailed information about safeguards that will be used to protect the funds.

Evolution of greed

[DamnStupidElf]

Greed is beneficial as long as the greedy individual can keep what he or she obtains. Greedy individuals can better support their offspring, who generally share their greedy genes. The balance between greed and altruism basically depends on the general wisdom of society. The more altruistic people are, the more greedy people can benefit, but the less altruistic people are, the less they benefit from cooperation. A stable point is where there is just enough altruism and greed to consume all the available resources without too many people getting upset and changing the gene pool with a shotgun.

Re:Evolution of greed

[BlackSabbath]

Well put. Loved the last line :-)

If anybody doubts the utility of greed as an agent of change (possibly progress?), you just have to look at the motivation behind the initial forays into the New World. The lure of booty and plunder has underpinned a great many of history's larger movements.

Re:Evolution of greed

[ryszard99]

i seem to remember someone famous saying "Greed is good"

Re:Evolution of greed

[Chrisje]

Funny thing is that Richard Dawkins argues in "The God Delusion" that altruism might be equally beneficial to the evolution of the species. And he *is* an evolutionary biologist who makes a very good case for that view.

I for one believe in the mix. Greed without altruism is just as useless as altruism without any greed.

Re:Evolution of greed

[Fleeced]

Greed is beneficial as long as the greedy individual can keep what he or she obtains.

So true... though to work properly (and keep things in balance) they also need to "keep" their losses - and not get bailed out for stupid decisions.

The balance between greed and altruism basically depends on the general wisdom of society. The more altruistic people are, the more greedy people can benefit, but the less altruistic people are, the less they benefit from cooperation. A stable point is where there is just enough altruism and greed to consume all the available resources without too many people getting upset and changing the gene pool with a shotgun.

I'd say that there's a balance between co-operation and conflict, rather than greed and altruism. And that balance between cooperation and conflict is called competition. Works well, most of the time.

I'm not sure altruism really exists... or society for that matter ;)

Re:Evolution of greed

[PMBjornerud]

A stable point is where there is just enough altruism and greed to consume all the available resources without too many people getting upset and changing the gene pool with a shotgun.

The stable point is not fixed, but depends on how the society reacts to greed.

The harder the punishment for greed, the more altruism a society can have.

Re:Evolution of greed

[Analogy Man]

I think the tipping point between greed and altruism has a little to do with diminishing returns. A millionaire might consider the warm fuzzy feeling of putting a $20 in the salvation army can in front of Target worth more than the plastic stuff they might buy with it.

Re:Evolution of greed

[blind biker]

Greed without altruism is just as useless as altruism without any greed.

Altruism is useful without greed, not useless! In fact, it's greed that makes altruism ineffective.
How altruistic would you be, if greedy people take advantage of you all the time? Less altruistic, I bet.

Re:Evolution of greed

[DamnStupidElf]

Perfect altruism is useless in evolutionary terms. If every organism sacrificed itself to save another organism whenever possible, none would survive except the ones that were not perfectly altruistic. Some self interest ("greed") is necessary.

Re:lots of verbiage

[immcintosh]

Your approach is a reasonable one. However I don't like it because there is essentially nothing that I can personally do to reduce the number of scammers in the world.

One might argue that lack of action is as much of a choice as action, and in that it is a choice it is something for which you are responsible, or could be blamed. Your failure to respond to Nigerian scams has reduced the total profit derived from these scams, and consequently reduced the number of scammers.

In other words, I submit that you personally are reducing the number of scammers in the world by simply not being stupid. Now, if only everybody did their little part we wouldn't have these problems...

Battered wives

[SmallFurryCreature]

That rape victim who went along willingly is all to common. From date rape to battered wives. People and women especially, are not raised to be... well skeptics, to always question, to always wonder "what do they want of me".

There are two toilets at your place of work, one is occupied, the other isn't. Why do you want in front of the one that is occupupied? Because a very small sign tells you to. A simple sign has the power to command you without questioning why you are holding it up while a perfectly fine toilet is available. People EVEN do this if they are in a place were NONE of the opposite sex are present or ever likely to be present.

Yes she was greedy, and I have little sympathy for her, but in a way, she is just the result of our world were in order to function as a group we must obey countless rules without questioning because they just have to be. Why do we drive on the right side of the road, even if the road is deserted, why do we stop for a red light even if there is no other traffic etc etc. I can drive a forklift in a deserted warehouse and I will STILL drive on the right of a road that is nothing more then the empty space between goods.

Most people here know about scams like this but recently I was sent a scam mail myself on anonymized service (no email, url, etc is allowed through just plain text) that makes scams impossible since the person talking to you can't contact you directly in anyway. So I had to ask "what the hell does the poster want" as I could not make sense of it. Turned out it was a scam, just an automated one sent by people who didn't know the system filters messages to such an extent.

Thrown into a situation where the rules you and I normally use to judge messages were different, my spam detector failed (it is a help service and many messages are garbled as people write them in great emotional distress at times and people then don't always make sense).

Yes, she is stupid and she should be fired from her job but being gullible and going along with a scam is also very human. Candid camera programs prove this. We really expect things to be true, for people not to lie because else the world doesn't work.

Check it yourself. Do you go blindly into the men's room without checking it is the men's room, just because a small sign says you won't be sued for entering it? A sign you have no reason is there legitamate?

So...

[Estanislao Mart�nez]

So, what is supposed to follow from "fault," in cases where there is no question of moral or legal wrong? In cases where it does it not play a role in either the moral or the legal calculus of the situation, what role does it play?

Re:So...

[Free the Cowards]

The role it plays is one of learning from other people's experience. If she was not at fault in any way it implies that there was no reasonable action she could have taken to avoid being scammed. That she carries fault for her loss means that we can examine the nature of that fault so as to avoid it in our lives, thereby not falling victim to the same scam.

Think of it as getting hit by lightning. One guy gets hit by lightning while standing outside on a perfectly calm blue day. Certainly not his fault. The other guy gets hit by lightning while holding on to a metal pole under a tree in the middle of a fierce thunderstorm. Absolutely his fault. If you try to learn from the first guy and decide that the only answer is never to go outside, you have learned the wrong lesson. But if you try to learn from the second guy and decide that the answer is to avoid being exposed while holding onto metal near trees in a thunderstorm, you've learned from his experience.

In this case, saying that it's her fault means that we can learn how the scammers tricked her so as to lessen their ability to trick us.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[MoonBuggy]

An honest man does an honest day's work for a living, and doesn't expect, want, or attempt to get something he doesn't deserve. Scammers capitalize on greed.

There are plenty of scams that don't, that was my point. Like I said, you could probably get people to join a pyramid scheme willingly even if you told the truth - just exploit people's greed as you mentioned.

On the other hand, lying outright to the hypothetical 'honest man' is an easy way to scam him. Posing as a charity and exploiting his kindness, for example, would be a very effective way to do so.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[randyest]

I said "No one ever won by sending money to a Nigerian." Your post makes no sense. The Nigerian did not send money to a Nigerian.

Re:lots of verbiage

[Free the Cowards]

It's true, but the effect I have personally is so small that it is basically irrelevant. It's the same reason why I believe that it is irrational to vote. (The expected return from voting is far smaller than the cost of doing so. However I still go vote, but I acknowledge that I am irrational in doing so.) Whereas my own personal welfare is much more greatly affected by my actions in avoiding scams and other crimes (and non-criminal losses, for that matter), so that's where I concentrate my thinking.

Teaching Critical Thinking Skills

[cowtamer]

Thinking critically and asking questions seems to be out of fashion these days. It scares me that this woman might be in charge of a life somewhere...

One of the best things that we did in high school did was to have units on "Critical Thinking."

We were given real consumer ads to "deconstruct" by answering questions (e.g., "The ad says that the coffee is 'mountain grown.' Explain why this does/doesn't make a difference"). We even had the assignment of coming up with a misleading ad ourselves to drive home the point.

I guess liberal, Midwestern "Outcome Based" educators in the US Educational system do some good after all...

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[randyest]

So? That doesn't make casinos as scam-like as this Nigerian thing.

So much for critical thinking

[SmallFurryCreature]

Where coffee is grown does make a difference. Different plants require different amounts of light. Mountains give three kinds of sunlight, shade side, sun side and the valley. Well the bit on top too but that is generally hard to farm as people fall off and mountain goats keep eating your crops.

So there is a difference between where in mountanous terrain the coffee is grown because it determines how much sunlight it gets.

Same as for instance in holland there is an exception to the rule that no sugar may be added for the production of wine. In warmer climates this is reasonable, but the cold climate of holland does not produce enough sugar of its own for the fermentation process.

Currently the debate if coffee is about shade-grown vs sun-grown. Traditionally coffee was grown under trees, this however makes the coffee bean mature slower. To ease production and make it quicker, farmers cut the trees down exposing the coffee shrub to the sun. This however is bad for the enviroment.

So now the shift is slowly going back to shade-grown coffee.

Wether mountain grown is a valid or non-valid term, is up for debate, BUT the part of critical thinking is to FULLY examine ALL elements of a claim. I am missing that in your post. There is a difference where the coffee been grows at least in the amount of sunlight it gets. Wether you can taste the difference (I got lousy taste buds) is up for debate, but mountain grown itself is an odd term (do they mean shade or sunside of the mountain) but the implication that were the coffee is grown matters is not. Shade-grown coffee is preferable, not for the taste but because it is better for the enviroment.

Re:I'm amadez

[mrmeval]

Did she really do it or did she just stick it to her man?

Re:dude

[preda1or]

> If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis. You think there are no female mods on slashdot?

Genius

[bugs2squash]

Sounds like she's thought of a great idea for a book, and she may well be making up the story about her savings being blown anyway. Perhaps she's smarter than all of us.

Maybe she's even an undercover Nigerian.

When the book comes out - check the spelling.

Go public?

[Dan541]

Why would someone go public to say "Look what a stupid bitch I am!"

Re:dude

[Free the Cowards]

Not enough to be significant.

Re:Mod parent !funny!

[LingNoi]

That's a brilliant idea, I vote Spy der Mann president of slashdot. I hope his 4 year run will do good things for us all.

Then what?

[LingNoi]

Then we sell the list to Nigeria?

Re:Then what?

[Dan541]

Now that you mention it we might as well make a bit of cash. but Nigeria must pay upfront, I don't trust their credit rating.

Re:Then what?

[ozbon]

To LingNoi,

    Please submit $50 for a replacement keyboard.
    Oh, and $0.95 for a new can of diet coke.

Sincerely

Ozbon.

Question answered..

[LingNoi]

From the article..

When Spears began to doubt the scam, she got letters from the President of Nigeria, FBI Director Mueller, and President Bush. Terrorists could get the money if she did not help, Bushâ(TM)s letter said. Spears continued to send funds. All the letters were fake, of course.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[randyest]

I say "No one ever won by sending money to a Nigerian." You say "Exept, of course, the Nigerian." You make no sense.

Ignorance is not an excuse

[LingNoi]

Lets assume the scam was real and she would have got the money.

She's breaking the law! Money laundering from Nigeria on the promise of million of dollars? and she's a reverend for the church!

Doesn't anyone see what is wrong with this or is everyone's moral compass broken?!

Re:Ignorance is not an excuse

[Cassius Corodes]

Yeah, I totally agree with you, but arresting her at this point is like beating a dead horse. I think she has suffered enough embarrassment, derision as well as financial hardship to make up for any punishment she deserves.

Re:Ignorance is not an excuse

[Killjoy_NL]

Beating a dead horse eh?
Maybe George Lucas can make a game out of it ;)

NIGERIA WARS
A long long time ago in a country far far away
etc :D

Re:Mod parent !funny!

[Spy der Mann]

That's a brilliant idea, I vote Spy der Mann president of slashdot. I hope his 4 year run will do good things for us all.

Oh, no, thank you. I know what will happen already.

If we wasn't a prince...

[chord.wav]

If we wasn't a prince he sure is one step closer to be it, with $400.000 more in his bank account. Talk about the law of attraction

Not surprised

[smangesable]

I used to work in a bank. This happens all the time. Most people and/or their partners catch on after the first $20K leaves their account.

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Ambvai]

http://www.419eater.com/html/joe_eboh.htm "'Prince' Joe Eboh contacts me with a classic 419 opening letter. I decide to make him jump through a few hoops before I'm prepared to agree to his proposition, and the results are amusing AND profitable, to the tune of $80 + $49 DHL shipping, so our scammer is down a whopping total of $129"

D:

[Maverynthia]

All I can think of is, damn.. i wish she'd have given it to me to pay off my student loans :/

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[Anonymous Coward]

No one ever won by sending money to a Nigerian.

http://419eater.com/

These guys bait scammers, usually persuading them to send a ridiculous picture of themselves - but one guy actually managed to persuade a scammer to send a $25 'clearing fee' before he would send his own 'clearing fee' back.

Re:g'luck

[owlstead]

She does not need $400K to dig herself out. Even though she send over that amount of money, she's got it by mortgaging her house. As long as she can pay her bills, she can keep it mortgaged. She probably had some money on the bank as well.

Personally, if I was her husband or family, I would have tried to ask for her to be marked incompetent, so she would need someones signature before making deals. Actually, I would still try and do that, with her consent if possible.

Re:Well deserved

[owlstead]

It's a pretty severe penalty for being stupid. She does not seem to be a bad person, so I certainly does not wish this for her. And I do think it might be hard for her husband and family as well. So no, IMHO she certainly does not deserve it if you look at it that way.

Do people who die in car accidents that they created deserve to die? Because you made one mistake in a split second? I think that people who think such things are incredibly stupid themselves.

Re:She has already demonstrated gullibility

[LingNoi]

More like she's a reverend and attempted to get involved in laundering millions of dollars illegally...

Oh poor thing, she lost all her money by breaking the law..

Re:What a dumbass

[LingNoi]

Why feel sorry for a criminal? She had no problem illegally laundering money from Nigeria. Crime doesn't pay.

Stupid Woman

[SlightOverdose]

Seriously... you recieve a letter from President Bush informing you that only YOU can possibly prevent this money from going to ter'ists, you simply need to send $100,000 to nigeria.

How fucking stupid do you have to be? I mean seriously.... wouldn't the fucking president of the united states be able to afford the "fees" needed to clear the cash if the story was actually true?

I just cannot fathom how someone could be so utterly stupid as to fall for this scam.

Personally I think anyone that falls for it deserves it.

many people wrongly define greed

[rohan972]

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=greed
-noun
excessive or rapacious desire, esp. for wealth or possessions.

Not all desire for gain is greed.

Re:many people wrongly define greed

[BlackSabbath]

Absolutely. I guess what I was trying to convey is that greed exceeds in quantity the natural evolutionary impulse. I'm not sure if there's a qualitative difference though. How many times have people said about others (usually obscenely rich others) "Don't they have enough already?".

To put it another way, I guess I'm saying that maybe "greed" defines a behaviour not a motivation for that behaviour.

Renowned psychiatrist got scammed by nigerians too

[slashdotmsiriv]

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/mar/02/local/me-nigerian2

I can't believe no-one's already quoted this...

[Klootzak]

"You think Einstein walked around thinkin' everyone was a bunch of dumb shits? ...Now you know why he built that bomb."

~ Rita (from the Movie Idiocracy).

Re:dude

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Utterly separate concepts? Why do you think the legal system exists in the first place?

Re:dude

[Free the Cowards]

To provide basic ground rules to place people on a more equal footing in their dealings with each other. Or if you want the cynical version, to enforce social order and maintain the powerful.

Sometimes the law exists to enforce morality, but it generally does a bad job of it, partly because it gets corrupted by those in power, and partly because people can't agree on which morality it should enforce.

Anyone whose mental age has surpassed twelve years or so should be able to take ten seconds to come up with an example of something which is morally good but illegal, and of something which is legal but morally wrong.

Have you ever been to Sweethome, OR?

[cursosegundo]

Sweethome is an intellectual backwater in Western Oregon. Apparently, Spears gravitated to this locale. Once again reinforcing the stereotype. FYI: median household income is $31,030 (Wikipedia), and I bet educational achievement is also below par.

Christmas

[olrik666]

Dear Santa,

This year, I'd like to have that woman's email address.

Thanks in advance!

Olrik

Re:lots of verbiage

[electrons_are_brave]

So intelligence is a virtue now? And stupidity a vice? Seems like a lot of the comments I'm reading are the result of nerd-alienation-at-school-effect still lingers. Agree, though, about the smuggling. And about the fact that she seems to have ripped off her family.

Re:lots of verbiage

[Bryan K. Feir]

Maybe, but there's also Douglas Hofstadter's idea of Superrationality. Basically, the concept is that what is rational for a self-centered individual can become irrational when projected to society as a whole. In essence, it's the ‘what if everybody did that’ argument boiled down to a game theoretical principle. It may not be strictly rational for any individual to vote, but if too many people think that way, then the unthinkingly irrational people drive the rest.

How did she do that?

[Godji]

Janella Spears wiped out her husband's retirement account

Somebody please explain to me how she was able to wipe out her husband's account. Shouldn't the husband be the only one able to wipe out his own account?

Re:lots of verbiage

[Nick Ives]

This isn't about intelligence good / stupidity bad. There's a certain level of capability that, if you fall beneath, you should seriously think about letting someone else manage your affairs. Sending $400k abroad sounds like it falls in that catagory.

In fact I remember reading about a case where a 419 scammer used someone with learning difficulties as their proxy to funnel money from victims from the USA to Nigeria. IIRC, the guy thought he had a real job and had no idea it was a scam. Obviously in cases like that there is real exploitation going on and sympathy is deserved.

So yea, I think my front door analogy stands. If you leave it wide open you get no sympathy when robbed except from friends and family, but as a friend you sometimes just have to extend sympathy when your mates doing something wildly negligent!

Scamming the scammers

[dual eyes]

There are people whose goal is to scam the scammers. http://www.ebolamonkeyman.com/ Not sure of the ethics of scamming scammers but I suppose they do a public service.

They are quite good!!

[floydman]

And i mean really really good.
Someone very dear to me, got scammed out of almost 100k USD. The person I am talking about is not an ignorant idiot, infact he is a well educated architect, with almost 30 years of experience in business.
The tricked him, and showed him the actual money (he traveled there, TWICE), set up a FAKE banking website which would show him that his account in that "~Internet Bank~" is 21 mil USD.
And kept on sucking on his money with excuses of paper work for this, bribe for that, etc.

He got greedy, and they abused that to the maximum.

Conclusion, these ppl are PROFESSIONAL, they actually study your character, your habits, etc, and a person has to be really smart not to fall for it. Infact, come to think of it, you have to belive that fairy tales dont exist anymore, you want 21 Mil USD, you freaking work your ass off.

I can tell you the rest of the story if you deposit a small amount into my /. account...

I have a friend who paid for Limewire

[Roy Hobbs]

This is almost as bad

Re:dude

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

That we are far from perfect comes as no surprise to me. But I don't see how it changes my point.

Re:lots of verbiage

[mgcarley]

Of course, for less than $10,000 she could have brought her and her husband plane tickets and hotels to Nigeria, rented armoured vehicles and security personnel and personally met with the scammers: and she'd have saved a bundle on Western Union fees.

Did you notice her hair color?

[KayakFun]

Doesn't surprise me a bit.

Re:Mod parent !funny!

[shellbeach]

Or perhaps people can just spend their points as they see fit.

Well, damn, there goes metamoderation as a pastime ...

Breaking News!

[jockeys]

A fool and her money are soon parted.

Film at 11.


Seriously, why is this news? Idiots fall for scams all the time, this idiot just fell a little harder than most.

Not smart

[tinkerton]

If you're not greedy you are a lot less vulnerable. If you're smart you can be outsmarted.

You have to understand that that's just the USA

[Moraelin]

1. Actually, and speaking as an atheist myself, it seems to me that you'd still be off the mark if you do a blanket extrapolation that even all 2 billion christians fit your

Most religious expression, in my experience, involves someone telling everyone around them, with great force and repetition, that things for which they have no actual proof are indeed true. If I generalize this behavior to religions in general, is that a stereotype, or in some way inappropriate?

If you look over the pond to most of continental Europe, that's flat out false. In Germany I've had someone knock on my door to give me pamphlets exactly _once_ in my entire life so far. Ok, a couple more tried to give them to me on the street, but we're still talking once-in-a-couple-of-years events. There are like 3 churches within walking distance of my house, at least one built entirely with donations from the local community of that particular christian sect, so there must be _some_ religious people around. But I haven't had them come over to tell me what to believe in. Much less "with great force and repetition." Heck, it now occurs to me that I don't even know who those religious people are at all, because they just don't start talks about it.

Or in France, as far as I know, you can actually go to a catholic school and not once see a crucifix or even hear about Jesus. ('Cause if they even mention Jesus, they lose the government subsidy for schools.)

The predominant culture at the moment is, basically, secular: your religion is your own private matter. Or how George Carlin put it: thou shalt keep thy religion to thyself. If you're religious, good for you, but keep it to yourself.

2. Extrapolate it about _all_ religions? Heh. There are plenty of religions which don't even have a problem with your believing in other gods.

E.g., Buddhism is largely an atheistic religion, as paradoxical as that sounds. It doesn't actually have a god of its own, and it has no fundamental problem with you throwing your lot in with other religions' gods. Your place in the great cycle of reincarnation are determined by what you _do_ and how you live your life, not by who you believe in. You're saved or damned (so to speak, and even then not in the abrahamic religion sense) by yourself, not by whether you brown-nose the right deity. Buddhism is more of a "manual", so to speak. And if you think you can find your way without their teachings, well, suit yourself. It certainly is possible, at least theoretically.

So it would make no sense for a Buddhist to try to save you from worshipping the wrong guy.

That's just one example of a religion which doesn't fit your stereotype at all. I could give more, but it's a too long message already.

Am I stereotyping when I suggest your pastor would be horrified at the thought of two men having sex every day for a week, or is that simply the truth? [...] Try being gay in a christian, jewish or muslim community and see how you fare

I don't know, mate, it seems to me like again you try to paint all christianity through the prism of the USA bible(-thumping) belt. Try being openly gay in almost any community this side of the ocean, and the vast majority of people will just leave you alone. And if anyone gave you a bible-thumping lecture about it, most people would look funny at _him_.

re: If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting...

[mrraven]

@Free the Cowards

"If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting that you have no penis."

So a lot of women rate you Overrated? Are you sure you want to go that way?

Now back to your fascinating conversation about scammers...

Re:What a dumbass

[Killjoy_NL]

Justniz feels sorry for the husband, not for her.

Cruelty, it's all good until

[mrraven]

@Hurriacan78

"I think it's a good thing to take resources from the stupid, and give it to the smart. And that's what's happening. Even if you do not like it. :)"

And if you can still say that if it happens to a parent, sibling, child, spouse or good friend then at least you are consistent and if not, not.

The upshot it's pretty easy to cruelly laugh at some gullible persons misfortune until some close to you is exploited. A noble society tries to uplift all it's members, not laugh at the misfortunate. It's your sort of snide glorification of cruelty that is alas all too common here in the U.S. that increasingly makes the U.S. a pariah state, which in the long run not only is immoral but actually endangers our safety when someone decides to "do something" about the cruel Americans. My assignment to you is to read some speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, and THINK (yes I'm shouting) about what they say, OK?

Thank you!

[mrraven]

@quarterbuck:

"If nothing else, show some concern for old people and people who are not as smart as you are."

I think this is quite literally the first compassionate response I have read in this whole long thread. The reason so many "nerds" don't have a social life is it's "cool" in the nerd sub culture to be an arrogant, unfeeling jerk. It makes me very thankful that I hang out with probably 50% social activists, 25% artists, and only 25% nerds (techno fetishists), y'all REALLY need to get out and meet some more kind hearted people.

Rant=over

O_o

[motang]

I just can't believe it!

Re:What a dumbass

[LingNoi]

Oh you're right, I misread the comment, sorry about that.

Biased Compass

[mrraven]

Not everyone is upper middle class with a thoroughgoing understanding of the minutia of the law. Spend some time in places like rural Oregon where this women is from among ordinary people before you judge her for not being knowledgeable of these sorts of laws. Not everyone is like you or I a political animal that spends hours per day on the internet. Try to understand that there are people VERY different from yourself in this country and try to have some passion for their circumstances, OK?

And yes I DO know of what I speak having spent several years in rural coastal southern Oregon teaching an after school web design class in a tiny town there. And no it wasn't all bad, not only was the countryside beautiful but there were many interesting artists living in off the grid houses way before "peak oil" was a trendy buzzword. There were also a lot of "red necks" and almost none of these people were very computer literate and that's OK, IMO we are best poised to survive whatever comes down the pike if we have diverse memepool, which yes includes people who may not be able to configure Linux in a virtual machine but may know how to set up a water system from a spring, how to hunt, and how to grow a bountiful garden which may become damn useful if we run out of fossil fuel.

So in short there are MANY people living way beyond the boundaries of the map indicated by your white bread "moral compass," deal.

Re:Biased Compass

[LingNoi]

Nonsensical dribble about nothing, then going on to talk about Linux... Please, stop trolling.

Re:Biased Compass

[mrraven]

Who provided concrete examples here? Who replied with a one line ad hominem smear backed with no sort of substance whatsoever? And I'm trolling!!!????? Keep spinning you are only making your self look bad.

Re:Biased Compass

[LingNoi]

Ok fine.. I'll respond to the only part that made sense... kind of made sense.

Not everyone is upper middle class with a thoroughgoing understanding of the minutia of the law.

You're saying that because she's an ignorant poor women from the south, but that's not the point.

Everyone knows that if someone is giving you millions of dollars whatever it is, it's not going to be legal. She knew what she was doing wasn't legal, but it's just an account transfer right? It's not like anyone is getting killed..

You're wrong argument is based on the understanding that she didn't know what she was doing was illegal, hence why you're coming up with the wrong conclusion.

Next time please don't try to shoehorn Linux and oil into a discussion like this. You were trolling.

Re:Biased Compass

[mrraven]

First Oregon is not the "south" it's the west coast.

Yes the fact she was scammed shows she doesn't have much wherewithal, and those are the people in society we ought to have compassion for, not throw the law book at in a haughty way as you were suggesting with your original post.

My point with Linux is not everyone in the U.S. is a techie and thus is going to immediately know what a Nigerian 419 scam is as she obviously didn't.

My overall point is, try having a little compassion for people different than yourself who are victims of scammers, rather than cruelly condemning them on top of there embarrassment and financial loss. Your argument is just the cyber version of the women who got raped was asking for it.

Dorks lack of social skills and empathy is not their redeeming quality I assure you.

Re:Biased Compass

[LingNoi]

not everyone in the U.S. is a techie and thus is going to immediately know what a Nigerian 419 scam is as she obviously didn't.

It doesn't matter if you know what a Nigerian scam is.

If someone you don't know contacts you with the promise to give you millions of dollars to just move money for them you know that it is against the law. She knew she was breaking the law.

So no, why should I feel sorry for someone breaking the law and got a sour deal? Should I feel sorry for drug dealers that get shot when a deal goes bad?

She's not a victim of the con artists, she's a victim of her own greed and willingness to break laws when it's to her advantage.

I don't lack social skills and empathy. It is your weakness for poor old mom which is stopping you from seeing the truth of the matter.

If she had stayed a law abiding citizen in the first place she wouldn't have lost all her money.

Re:Biased Compass

[mrraven]

You said in an earlier post:

"Everyone knows that if someone is giving you millions of dollars whatever it is, it's not going to be legal."

About that you are just plain factually wrong I have lived in backwoods Oregon less than a 100 miles from where that women lives, and I can assure the average resident there has absolutely no idea what the esoteric laws are regarding international financial transactions so don't ASSume they do.

14% of American adults are functionally illiterate:

"ll over the U.S.A. 30 million (14% of adults) are unable to perform simple and everyday literacy activities. [1]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy

And an even larger number are educated enough to be able to barely read and function in society but would have no knowledge of international finance laws like you ASSume, or the critical capability to analysis a true document from a fraudulent one.

Your attitude of throwing the book at the most vulnerable 5th of the population rather than working to educate and uplift them smacks of a barbaric cruelty that frankly disgusts me. You are definitely getting marked as a "foe" for it is people like you who advocate kicking people when they are down that make the world an endless cruel shit hole

Re:Biased Compass

[LingNoi]

Your problem is that you have no morals. You can't comprehend that she's done anything wrong in the first place.

Being ignorant of the law is not an excuse for breaking it.

Your attitude of throwing the book at the most vulnerable 5th of the population

I never said she should go to jail. However there is too much pity for this women with no one looking at the whole picture.

You are definitely getting marked as a "foe" for it is people like you who advocate kicking people when they are down that make the world an endless cruel shit hole

There's no need to act all butt hurt because you know you're wrong.

To be honest I am glad, hopefully I'll never have to hear from you again, seeming as all your posts are nonsensical dribble about oil and bush.

Re:Biased Compass

[mrraven]

Have fun being on the losing end of history, cruel douche nozzle asswipe. I sincerely hope you are posting from America as an American citizen so you can watch your neo-con edifice crumble and die and be swept into the gutter of history.

http://www.change.gov/

Re:Biased Compass

[LingNoi]

I'm a European socialist, I have no idea where you get these ideas from.

Here's what I know about you based on your comment history..

- Your a mac fanboi
- You rattle on and on about Bush and Oil in unrelated stories (you also did it in my comment)
- Whenever someone disagrees with you, you start with baseless attacks
- You're a hypocrite, you accuse me of an ad hominem smear against you then call me an "ASS"
- When you lose an argument you can't man up and admit you're wrong, you have to start with the "well you're just a neo-con" shit..

I always laugh when people push out the neo-con shit on me when I am European and voted for the green party last election.. Just goes to show how people split the world up into left and right.

lol, Americans..

Re:Biased Compass

[mrraven]

P.S. Less than a third of my posts mentioned Bush on slashdot

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=mrraven+site%3Aslashdot.org&btnG=Search&meta=&aq=f&oq=

considering that "our" President engaged in gross violations of FISA and the 4th amendment by mass illegal spying on Americans, and engaged in a war of aggression against Iraq who did nothing to us leading to a million dead in fact I was too kind to him. I sincerely hope he is tried at the Hague and found guilty of crimes against humanity and then hung from the neck until dead. That is the right amount of attention and just punishment for those who torture, abrogate the Constitution, and cause a million innocent people to die.

p.s. Thanks for directly liking to a malware executable download, nice:

http://www.google.com/search?q=impulsedriven+malware&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Re:Biased Compass

[LingNoi]

p.s. Thanks for directly liking to a malware executable download, nice:

My link goes to impulsedriven.com, the makers of impulse. You're an idiot.

Hawked?

[ronadams]

I'm picturing a banjo suddenly sprouting wings and a razor-sharp beak, soaring over the landscape and tweeting bluegrass licks. It's terrifying.

So when...

[GatorMan]

can we expect the book? Surely she's still just as greedy, and what better way?

Re:lots of verbiage

[Free the Cowards]

Except that superrationality is only the rational strategy when all the other players are superrational too. Since most of my fellow human beings tend to have a difficult time even with regular boring rationality, thinking superrationally on my part is foolish.

Re: If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting...

[Free the Cowards]

I lot of women would if there were a lot of women here. But remember what site you're posting to.

Re:What a dumbass

[Killjoy_NL]

No problem of course, honest mistake (and sucky punctuation on Justs part) ;)

Re: If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting...

[mrraven]

a) Let's say there are 20,000 women here out of 2 million accounts, that would be 1% and i think it's probably more than that, but even at that number your "have no penis" statement just becomes ridiculous. It is in essence baiting tens of thousands of women to moderate you overrated. Do you really want to go that ?

b) Some of us would like to see more women in technology fields and on slashdot as well, crude sophomoric humor implying lack of penis equals bad comment is going to off putting to women who might post here. Again why go that way? It's just a pointlessly obnoxious broad bushing stereotype, and not even good humor, just weak.

Do better, OK?

Re:The Nigerian scam is no more of a scam than...

[fuckinshitmotherfuck]

I did, so send me 100$ and I can send you 10000$ so I don't have to hide it from the government.

Re: If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting...

[Free the Cowards]

My previous sig was "fuck y'all", do you rate that as better or worse?

Honestly I could not possibly care less who I offend or scare away with my Slashdot signature.

Re: If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting...

[mrraven]

Proud of yourself sexist troll?

Re: If you mod me Overrated, you are admitting...

[Free the Cowards]

Why would I be proud? It's just an insignificant bit of text on a silly albeit entertaining discussion site.

haha

[xmvince]

and she gets what she deserves. i mean, how many times do we have to warn people before they realize it's a scam? If people want to use these powerful technologies then they have to realize there are potential risks and you can't be sending money to random people! lol I would shake the Nigerian's hand for helping to identify another stupid American. Maybe if they continue, all the stupid Americans will be bankrupt/broke and will push them out of the way for the smart people! Thank you Nigeria (for Internet Darwinism)

Blame and Responsibility

[Firrenzi]

To blame others is to disempower ourselves by not accepting our own 'response-ability'

If everyone is so intelligent...

[supermanwashere]

I wonder how many people missed the portion immediately below the article

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Re:lots of verbiage

[electrons_are_brave]

Well, I would feel sympathy if someone got robbed, even if they left their door open. Just because a victim was an easy target doesn't diminish that for me. If fact the more vulnerable the victim, the greater my sympathy, in some ways. Idiots included.